David Porter McCorkle was a Confederate Lieutenant in the American Civil War. He ran the Naval Ordnance Works at New Orleans which also served as a laboratory, principally manufacturing shot and shells, gun carriages for outfitting ships in the Confederate Navy. In March or April 1862, before the city's capture in the Battle of New Orleans, he removed the ordnance and laboratory stores to Atlanta. McCorkle wrote to his supervisor, Catesby ap Roger Jones, on June 8: After the war, he joined the Peruvian Navy with John Tucker.