General Horace Porter was born in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, April 15, 1837. He was the son of David Rittenhouse Porter, an ironmaster and governor of Pennsylvania and grandson of Gen. Andrew Porter of Selma Mansion, Norristown. A first cousin, Andrew Porter also  served as a Union General. Horace Porter  received the Medal of Honor at the Battle of Chickamuga. In the last year of the war, he served on the staff of Gen.Ulysses S.Grant. writing a memoir of the experience, Campaigning With Grant (1897) called  "The Definitive Account of the Surrender at Appomattox Court House".
From 1869 to 1872, Porter served as President Grant's personal secretary in The White House. He was U.S. Ambassador to France from 1897 - 1905, paying for the recovery of the body of John. Paul Jones and returning it to   the United States for reburial. 
Porter was president of the Union League Club of  New York from 1893 to 1897. He was a major force in the construction of Grant's Tomb. Horace Porter died May 29, 1921.