Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, June 13, 1866

Dined this evening at Tassara's, the Spanish Minister. The banquet was given in honor of Dulce, late Governor-General of Cuba. Seward and Stanton were the only Cabinet-members besides myself who were present. Sir Frederick Bruce, Montholon, Baron Gerolt, etc., etc., were present. General Dulce does not speak nor understand English, and therefore all conversation was through an interpreter. As I sat at his right, and could not talk Spanish, we were not very sociable. He is a quiet, gentlemanly man with little of the look of a Spanish grandee.

I was sorry to hear Seward and Stanton chuckling over an allowance which they had succeeded in getting for Mrs. Bertinatti, the wife of the Italian Minister. They evidently thought it an adroit piece of management, and I judge the President has been misled in regard to it. Mrs. B. was a Rebel Mrs. Bass, of Mississippi, and her claim unjust. I apprehended it should not have been allowed.

The President has made the annual Executive appointments of midshipmen. In this he exhibited more painstaking than Mr. Lincoln, and gave less authority to me, which I did not regret. Usually Mr. Lincoln specified two or three special cases and then turned over the residue to me. Mr. Johnson desired me to go over the applicants twice with him in detail, got, as far as he could, particulars, and retained the whole schedule of names for more than a week, occasionally speaking of some one or more to me. His aim seemed to be to confer the appointment on the poor and deserving, regardless of locality, names, and influence. His selections were probably good ones, but some of them would have been different had the choice devolved on me.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 526