James Alden

James Alden (March 31, 1810 – February 6, 1877) was a U.S. Navy officer who served from the late 1820s until after the Civil War.

Born in Portland, Maine, Alden was a direct descendant of John Alden, a Mayflower pilgrim. Alden was appointed midshipman on 1 April 1828 and spent the initial years of his naval career ashore at the Naval Station, Boston, Massachusetts, before he served in the Mediterranean Squadron on board the sloop of war John Adams. Promoted to passed midshipman on 14 June 1834, Alden then served at the Boston Navy Yard until he was assigned to the exploring expedition under Lieutenant Charles Wilkes. During the course of this voyage (1838–1842), the officers and men of the expedition were transferred freely from one vessel to another, Alden–promoted to lieutenant on 25 February 1841–concluding the cruise as executive officer of the sloop Porpoise. He saw action at Malolo, in the Fiji Islands, on 26 July 1840, in the punitive expedition against the tribe which had murdered Lt. Joseph Underwood and Midshipman Wilkes Henry, the latter a nephew of the expedition's leader, two days before.

After another tour of duty at the naval station at Boston, Alden was assigned to Constitution, and circumnavigated the globe in the frigate during her cruise under Captain John ("Mad Jack") Percival. While serving therein, he commanded a boat expedition that cut out several war junks from under the guns of a fort at Zuron Bay, Cochin China. Later serving in the Home Squadron during the Mexican-American War (1846), Alden–an adept surveyor–participated in the captures of Veracruz, Tuxpan and Tabasco.

Following the war with Mexico, Alden served as inspector of provisions and clothing at Boston until detached from this duty on 18 May 1849 to go to Washington, D.C., and report to the Secretary of the Treasury for duty with the Coast Survey. From the summer of 1849 to the late winter of 1851, he commanded, in succession, the Coast Survey steamers John Y. Mason and Walker in survey duty off the eastern seaboard. Assigned to duty on the Pacific coast thereafter, Alden traveled to San Francisco, California where he ultimately assumed command of the steamer Active, and carried out survey work off the west coast into 1860. During this time, on 1 September 1855, he was promoted to commander.

Indian disturbances in the Washington Territory in January 1856 highlighted Alden's tour of duty in command of Active; and his ship, joining the sloop-of-war Decatur and the steamer Massachusetts, proved "of great service" during those troubled times. Active operated in the headwaters of Puget Sound, where her presence reassured the settlers. In the summer of 1859, during tensions incident to an American's killing a Britisher's pig on San Juan Island, Active's timely arrival at that isle apparently helped to quiet a potentially dangerous situation in what became later known as the "Pig War."

The outbreak of the American Civil War in the spring of 1861 found Alden in command of the steamer South Carolina, in which he participated in the relief of Fort Pickens. Next given the steam sloop Richmond, Alden commanded that ship in the passage of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, and in the engagements with Confederate batteries at Chalmette; twice passing the southern guns at Vicksburg, and in the battle at Port Hudson. Promoted to captain on 2 January 1863, Alden next assumed command of the steam sloop Brooklyn, and led that ship in the action with Fort Gaines and Morgan and with the Confederate gunboats in the Battle of Mobile Bay. While Brooklyn was being sent north for repairs, she was attached to the naval forces gathering off Fort Fisher, and took part in both assaults on that Confederate bastion.

Promoted to commodore on 25 July 1866, Alden, over the next two years, commanded, in succession, the steam sloop Susquehanna and the steam frigate Minnesota before he was given the commandantcy of the Mare Island Navy Yard. Appointed Chief of the Bureau of Navigation in April 1869, Alden—promoted to rear admiral on 19 June 1871—returned to sea in 1871 with orders to command the naval force on the European Station.

Departing New York in his flagship, Wabash, on 17 November 1871, Alden relieved Rear Admiral Charles S. Boggs at Villefranche, France, on 1 January 1872. Although placed on the retired list on 31 March 1872, Alden remained on active duty commanding the European Fleet until relieved by Rear Admiral A. Ludlow Case at Villefranche on 2 June 1873. His last tour of duty afloat completed, he sailed home in his former command, Brooklyn.

Rear Admiral Alden died in San Francisco, California, February 6, 1877, but was buried in the city of his birth, Portland, Maine, on 24 February 1877.

USS Alden (DD-211) was named for him.

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.