Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, April 24, 1866

Admiral Farragut and Mrs. F. are staying with us, and I find little time to write. Have had several interviews with the President and Mr. Seward in relation to the cruise of the Chattanooga and passage of Colonel Robert Johnson, under an appointment of the State Department. The President evidently feels embarrassed, yet anxious on his son's account. He is aware of the importance to himself and the country that he should be relieved from the care of this unfortunate young man, but is unwilling that anything personal to himself should be done.

I called last Thursday with Captain McKinstry and introduced him first to the President and then to Messrs. Stover and Robert Johnson. Subsequently I saw Mr. Seward, who arranged the subject-matter of the mission. I addressed him a letter, stating the cruise of the Chattanooga and the principal points at which she would stop. By request of Mr. S. an alteration was made, avoiding Australia and going to China and Japan instead of running directly on the west coast of South America.

At the Cabinet-meeting I submitted Admiral Godon's dispatch of the 23d of January, stating the demands and difficulties of Mr. Washburn,¹ our Minister to Paraguay, who had been absent from his post more than a year and has been wintering since last September with his family in Buenos Ayres. In the mean time the allies have blockaded the river and object to his passing through the lines, and he has made a demand for the Wasp or some other naval vessel to convey him and his family.

Mr. Seward, without knowing all the facts, at once requested that Mr. Washburn should have public conveyance. I showed him Godon's dispatch, who states that no foreign power has attempted to pass the blockade, that he cannot do it without obtaining from the Buenos Ayres authorities coal, and that to return the courtesy by setting them at defiance would be ungracious; that no foreign government has a representative in Paraguay; that we have no interests there, and that if Mr. Washburn gets there he will be almost the only American in the territory and will require a naval force to protect him.

Although taken a little aback by the statements of Godon, Seward had committed himself too strongly to back down. He said the Minister must go through the blockade, whether it cost $3000 or $30,000; that he must get the coal of the Buenos Ayres authorities and disoblige them by violating the blockade, if Mr. Washburn could not go without; and he (Seward) wanted to take Godon's dispatch and read.

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¹ Charles Ames Washburn, brother of Elihu B. Washburne.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 490-2