Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, June 19, 1865

Called yesterday on the President, as requested and appointed by him on Saturday. After running over the different classes of appointments which the President is authorized to make at the Naval School, he said he knew little of them and should leave them chiefly to me. There were four selections of the class of ten at large to be made, and perhaps thirty candidates, three of whom were from Tennessee. He spoke highly of each and expressed a wish that all three should be appointed. I said he could so order, but suggested that exception might be taken to the appointment of three from his own State, and only one to all others. He appreciated the objection, but said they were all good boys. I intimated a probability that all, or nearly all, the candidates were also excellent young men. It was finally left that two of them should be appointed, and that the other must if possible come in under another class.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 317-8