The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy ed. by William E. Gienapp and Erica L. Gienapp (review)

The Civil War sesquicentennial has brought forth a flood of new publications about the war. Included in this recent wave of scholarship are a good number of books dealing with the Union and Confederate navies. Numerous biographies of naval personnel, studies of individual ships or engagements, and broader comprehensive works have led to a much better understanding of the role both navies played in the conflict.

The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles is one of the most useful books to come out of this commemoration. It is the third and should be the final edition of Gideon Welles’s diary to be published. Unlike the 1911 edition edited by Welles’s son Edgar and the 1960 edition of historian Howard K. Beale, this one, edited by William and Erica Gienapp, stays true to the original manuscript edition written by Secretary Welles. Whereas information written at a later date by Welles and edits made by his son are contained within the body of the diary in the two previous editions, all of that material has been removed and placed into appendices for this edition. For example, appendix A includes Welles’s recollections of events before August 1862, when he began his diary, and highlights events of note in the early days of the administration and the war, but the writing here is not as detailed as the diary entries themselves. The editors provide many useful additions to the diary text. Appendix B provides brief biographical sketches of all of Lincoln’s cabinet members, while a seventeen-page biography of Welles appears at the beginning of the book. The diary is extensively footnoted, which is particularly helpful in identifying people and giving context to events.

The diary is a wealth of information and insight, from the man Lincoln referred to as “Neptune.” Entries appear in some instances almost daily, but there are periods of weeks without a single entry, always explained by Welles as soon as he picks the diary up again. Topics run the gamut from naval affairs to cabinet business, politics, policy, foreign affairs, and critiques of the army and his fellow cabinet members. It seems there were few topics on which Welles was hesitant to comment. His diary entries always seem well thought-out, conscientious, and knowledgeable. He exhibits understanding of a vast range of subjects, including the business of the other cabinet departments and the politics inside and outside of Washington. Although Welles was from Connecticut, he was very well in tune with politics throughout the New England states, New York, and, to a lesser extent, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Welles’s relationship with the president was good, though he did not always agree with Lincoln. His relationship with fellow cabinet members was tense, particularly with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Secretary of State William Seward. Welles felt that Stanton mismanaged the army and the war, and that Stanton and Lincoln were too loyal to officers who did not perform at a high level, especially General-in-Chief Henry Halleck and General George B. McClellan. Welles blames the poor performance of many officers on their West Point training, saying that “a defensive policy was the West Point policy. Our government was not intended to be aggressive but to resist aggression. We had good engineers and accomplished officers, but no efficient, energetic commanding general had yet appeared from that institution” (41). He of course argues that the navy produced better officers, citing men like Admiral David Farragut as well as Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont, with whom he had a protracted disagreement later in the war, showing that he was not above calling out his own under-performing officers when warranted. He also shows a willingness to stand by naval officers, even difficult ones, when he believed they were the right man for the job...