Admiral Du Pont arrived to-day; looks hale and hearty. He is
a skillful and accomplished officer. Has a fine address, is a courtier with
perhaps too much finesse and management, resorts too much to extraneous and
subordinate influences to accomplish what he might easily attain directly, and,
like many naval officers, is given to cliques, — personal, naval clanship. This
evil I have striven to break up, and, with the assistance of Secession, which
took off some of the worst cases, have thus far been pretty successful, but
there are symptoms of it in the South Atlantic Squadron, though I hope it is
not serious. It is well that the officers should not only respect but have an
attachment to their commanders, but not with injustice to others, nor at the
expense of true patriotism and the service. But all that I have yet seen is, if
not exactly what is wished, excusable. Certainly, while he continues to do his
duty so well, I shall pass minor errors and sustain Du Pont. He gives me
interesting details of incidents connected with the blockade, of the entrance
to Stono, and affairs at James Island, where Benham committed a characteristic
offense in one direction and Hunter a mistake in another.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864,
p. 160
No comments:
Post a Comment