Seward was not at
the meeting of the Cabinet. Chase avoids coming in these days. Blair is ill.
There has been some vicious legislation in Congress, which I at one time
supposed was inadvertent but which I begin to think was not wholly without
design. The maritime towns, from which we draw most of our seamen, are to be
allowed no credit in the draft for men who enlist in the Navy. Of course the
local authorities and public opinion in those communities are opposed to naval
enlistments, which, with the high military bounties, are telling on the naval
service. We need at least five thousand of the sailors who have been enticed by
high bounties and the causes alluded to into the army. They are experts, can
discharge seamen's duty; landsmen cannot fill their place. Having received the
bounty, they would prefer reentering the Navy, but the law has given the power
to [allow them to] do so into the hands of the Secretary of War, and he is
disposed to show his authority by refusing to yield up these sailors to their
proper trade and calling. The President can order the transfer, but he dislikes
to interfere with and overrule Stanton. Wilson, Chairman of the Military
Committee, acts with Stanton; Hale, Chairman of the Naval Committee, is
indifferent; Congress hesitates; and the result is our vessels are not manned,
the service is crippled, and the country must suffer.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 498-9
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