Yates Stirling

Yates Stirling (May 6, 1843 – March 5, 1929) was a rear admiral in the United States Navy.

Birth and personal life

Stirling was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 6, 1843, the son of Archibald Stirling and the former Elizabeth A. Walsh. He and his wife, Ellen (1843–1929), had seven children. Their elder son, Yates Stirling Jr. (1872–1948), also became a rear admiral in the Navy, making them only the second family in the history of the U.S. Navy to have father and son rear admirals concurrently living. The first were Rear Admirals Thomas O. Selfridge Sr. and Junior. Stirling's younger son, Archibald (1884–1963), was a captain in the Navy.

Stirling was a companion of the Maryland Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States as a veteran commissioned officer of the Civil War. He was a grandson of Thomas Yates (1740–1815), captain, Fourth Battalion, Maryland Regulars during the American Revolutionary War.

Naval career

Stirling attended private schools in Baltimore as a youth. He was appointed by Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, as an acting midshipman on September 27, 1860. In June 1861, Stirling and several other midshipman, including Robley "Fighting Bob" Evans, future hero of the Spanish–American War, submitted letters of resignation, believing their loyalty was with the Confederacy. Four weeks later they had second thoughts and retracted their resignations, expressing loyalty to the Union. When the rank of acting midshipman was abolished on July 16, 1862, his rank became midshipman. After the American Civil War broke out in April 1861, the academy moved to Newport, Rhode Island, for the duration of the war and Stirling graduated one year ahead of schedule in 1863 due to the expanded U.S. Navy's need for officers during the war. He was commissioned as an ensign on May 28, 1863.