found on the island, it had been visited prior to 1857 by whalers). Civil War service In the American Civil War, Davis was appointed to Blockade Strategy Board in June 1861. On 15 November 1861, he was promoted to captain. He was made acting flag officer, in command of the Western Gunboat Flotilla. A day after he took command, the flotilla fought a short battle with Confederate ships on the Mississippi River at Plum Point Bend on May 10, 1862. Caught unready for battle, two of the Union ships were badly damaged and had to be run into shoal water to keep from sinking. The Confederate vessels escaped with only minor damage. On June 6, his ships fought in the Battle of Memphis, which resulted in the sinking or capture of seven of the eight Confederate ships, compared with damage to only one of the Union vessels. In July, he cooperated with Flag Officer David G. Farragut in an attack on Vicksburg, Mississippi, but they were forced to withdraw. In August, he proceeded up the Yazoo River and successfully seized Confederate supplies and munitions there. After this excursion, he was made Chief of the Bureau of Navigation and returned to Washington, D.C.. On February 7, 1863, he was promoted to rear admiral. Post-war service After the war he joined the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS). He was a member of the New York Commandery and received insignia number 1022. Published 1857, Davis translated to English a copy of Carl Friedrich Gauss' Theory of the Motion of the Heavenly Bodies Moving about the Sun in Conic Sections. From 1865 to 1867, he was the Superintendent of the United States Naval Observatory. In 1867, he was given command of the South Atlantic Squadron and was given the as his flagship. In 1869, he returned home and served both on the Lighthouse Board as well as in the Naval Observatory. Davis died in Washington, D.C., and is buried in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Personal life He married Harriette Blake Mills, the daughter of U.S. Senator Elijah Hunt Mills. Together, they were the parents of: Constant Davis, an 1864 graduate of Harvard who died of tuberculosis in 1869. Anna Cabot Mills Davis, who married U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. Evelyn Davis, who married Brooks Adams, son of Charles Francis Adams Sr., grandson of President John Quincy Adams, and great-grandson of