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Introduction Gideon Welles, a native of Glastonbury, Connecticut, was one of the state’s most influential journalists and politicians during the three decades preceding the Civil War. Today, however, he is usually remembered as Lincoln’s secretary of the navy – “Father Neptune” (or just “Neptune”) as the president called him. He was only the fourth Connecticut resident appointed to a cabinet post, which he continued to hold throughout Andrew Johnson’s presidency.1 Historians usually credit Welles with being an energetic and effective administrator who did much to modernize a service in the grip of an aging uniformed leadership that was rigidly set in its ways. When in July 1861 Congress authorized him (and also the secretary of war) to take into consideration merit as well as seniority in making assignments, Welles proceeded to appoint younger, less tradition-bound officers to key positions . He also oversaw the Navy’s growth from fewer than 100 ships to 671 and the organization and implementation of the increasingly effective blockade of 3500 miles of Confederate coastline. Furthermore, after some initial hesitation, he pushed for the development of ironclad warships, including the famous USS Monitor that fought the ironclad CSS Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimack) to a draw on March 9, 1862, thereby saving the wooden Union warships stationed in Hampton Roads, Virginia, from virtually certain destruction.2 He was, in short, one of the architects of Union victory. 1 The first three were Oliver Wolcott, Jr., secretary of the treasury under Washington and John Adams; John M. Niles, postmaster general during the Van Buren administration; and Isaac Toucey, who was both attorney general in the Polk administration and Buchanan’s secretary of the navy. 2 Of the 671 warships, 559 were powered wholly or in part by steam, and more than 70 were ironclads. James M. McPherson, War on the Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861 – 1865 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), pp. 35-36, 98-105, and 224. On the initiation of the blockade, see McPherson, Chapter 2, and Craig L. Symonds, Lincoln and His Admirals (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), Chapter 2. 1 2 Introduction For many historians, however, what is most interesting about Welles is the extensive diary he kept during the war.3 It provides first-hand information, and often perceptive insights, about Lincoln, Welles’s cabinet colleagues, and their conflicts and rivalries. It also covers a wealth of other topics – topics as varied as a cabinet discussion of what the track gauge of the planned transcontinental railroad should be (Welles favored 4 feet, 8½ inches, which became standard for American railroads); home-state pressure on Welles to establish a navy yard in New London; the July 1863 New York City draft riots, which Welles blamed mainly on New York’s Democratic governor, Horatio Seymour, whom he dubbed “Sir Forcible Feeble;” Welles’s fear, as a lifelong hard-money man, that the government’s issuance of paper currency not convertible to gold would lead to financial disaster; and the cabinet’s opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment declaring the United States a Christian nation. Despite his achievements as navy secretary, Welles was often the target of public criticism. When rebel cruisers wreaked havoc on American maritime commerce, merchants and ship owners blamed him for their losses. Newspapers regularly faulted him because so many blockaderunners managed to evade navy patrols and bring cargo into and out of Confederate ports. Armchair admirals were quick to second-guess his decisions. And cartoonists had a field day at his expense. Welles rarely replied to his critics, but he sometimes vented his anger in the diary. For instance, on December 26, 1863, he wrote In naval matters . . . those who are most ignorant complain loudest. The wisest policy receives the severest condemnation . My best measures have been the most harshly criticized. . . . Unreasonable and captious men will blame me, take what course I may. The diary also provided an outlet for Welles’s resentment that the War Department failed to give the navy due credit for its contribution to such successful combined army-navy operations as the capture of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River in 1863. He was confident, however, as he wrote on August 23, 1864, that “history will put all right,” although he predicted it would be a generation or more “before the prejudices and perversions of partisans will be dissipated, and the true facts be developed.” 3 This was not Welles’s first turn as a diarist. In...

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