Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, February 27, 1864

A very busy day, and I am very indifferently well to discharge the mass of business; but got through with it before 5 P.m. Am surprised that I do not commit more serious mistakes. Received the charges and specifications against Wilkes. Convened the court, or ordered it to be convened, on the 9th. Am sorry to be compelled to do this, but there is no alternative.

Sedgwick calls about the prize law which Judge Sprague and Dana have got up. In the main it is pretty well done, but needs some amendments.

Seward told me in a whisper that we had met a serious reverse in Florida. It is [not] mentioned in the papers. This suppressing a plump and plain fact, already accomplished, because unfortunate, is not wise. The Florida expedition has been one of the secret movements that have been projected, I know not by whom, but suspect the President has been trying a game himself. He has done such things, and, I believe, always unfortunately. I may be wrong in my conclusions, but his secretary, John Hay, was sent off to join the forces at Port Royal, and this expedition was then commenced. Admiral Dahlgren went off on it without orders from me, and had only time to advise me he was going. Though he has general directions to cooperate with the army, he would not have done this but from high authority.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 531-2

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, February 15, 1864

Mr. Sedgwick on Friday wished a pass to visit Stover, the convict in Fort Lafayette, and would get from him statements that would open frauds and misdeeds upon the government. I disliked to give him such pass, and yet was not fully prepared to deny him, because he might be useful in aiding the Department to bring offenders to light. I therefore put him off with a suggestion that he might consult the marshal, and telegraph me if necessary. I gave a permit, however, to Colonel Olcott, and Baker, the detective. To-day Colonel Olcott telegraphs me that he visited Stover at Fort Lafayette, and found Sedgwick with him by permission of General Dix.

There is evidently a desire among the officials of the War Office to make difficulty, and no disposition to aid the Navy Department in ferreting out offenders. These committees in Congress are like them in many respects.

The movements of parties and partisans are becoming distinct. I think there are indications that Chase intends to press his pretensions as a candidate, and much of the Treasury machinery and the special agencies have that end in view. This is to be regretted. The whole effort is a forced one and can result in no good to himself, but may embarrass the Administration. The extreme radicals are turning their attention to him and also to Frémont. As between the two, Chase is incomparably the most capable and best, and yet I think less of his financial ability and the soundness of his political principles than I did. The President fears Chase, and he also respects him. He places a much higher estimate on the financial talents of Chase than I do, because, perhaps, we have been educated in different schools. The President, as a follower of Clay, and as a Whig, believes in expedients. I adhere to specie as the true standard of value. With the resources of the nation at his disposal, Chase has by his mental activity and schemes contrived to draw from the people their funds and credit in the prosecution of a war to which they willingly give their blood as well as their treasure.

Some late remarks in the Senate have a mischievous tendency, and there is no mistaking the fact that they have their origin in the Treasury Department. The Administration is arraigned as a departmental one in its management of affairs, and unfortunately the fact is so, owing chiefly to the influence of Seward. But Chase himself is not free from blame in this matter. He did not maintain, as he should have done, the importance of Cabinet consultations and decisions at the beginning, but cuddled first with Cameron, then with Stanton, but gained no strength. Latterly his indifference is more manifest than that of any other one, not excepting Stanton. This being the case, it does not become his special friends to assail the President on that score. Chase himself is in fault.

The President commenced his administration by yielding apparently almost everything to Seward, and Seward was opposed to Cabinet consultations. He made it a point to have daily or more frequent interviews with the President, and to ascertain from him everything that was being done in the several Departments. A different course was suggested and pressed by others, but Chase, who should, from his position and standing, have been foremost in the matter and who was most decidedly with us then, flinched and shirked the point. He was permitted to do with his own Department pretty much as he pleased, and this reconciled him to the Seward policy in a great degree, though he was sometimes restless and desired to be better informed, particularly in regard to what was doing in the War Department. Things, however, took such a course that the Administration became departmental, and the result was the President himself was less informed than he should have been and much less than he ardently craved to be, with either the War or the Treasury. The successive Generals-in-Chief he consulted constantly, as did Seward, and, the military measures being those of most absorbing interest, the President was constantly seeking and asking for information, not only at the Executive Mansion, but at their respective offices and headquarters. Scott, and McClellan, and Halleck, each influenced him more than they should have done, often in a wrong direction, for he better appreciated the public mind and more fully sympathized with it than any of his generals. Neither of the three military men named entered into the great political questions of the period with any cordiality, or in fact with any correct knowledge or right appreciation of them. Yet they controlled and directed military movements, and in some respects the policy of the government, far more than the Cabinet.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 524-7

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, January 19, 1864

At the Cabinet to-day the President read letters from certain Louisiana planters and from General Banks and others, urging the admission of cotton within our lines. He also read the rough draft of a letter prepared by himself, designating New Orleans and Baton Rouge as depots for cotton to be brought thither, sold for “greenbacks,” etc., etc. It had been submitted to Chase and Stanton previously, who both indorsed and perhaps advised, if they did not first suggest, it. Seward and Blair thought it might operate well. Stanton said General Grant was opposed to action in his command, but as Banks favored it, he thought it might be well to let the matter go forward as the President proposed. I suggested that the effect would be good to open the whole country west of the Mississippi above New Orleans. But the President said it might disturb General Grant.

The present demonstration of factious grumblers and interested knaves against the Navy Department is alleged want of speed in our boats. Mr. Fox, Isherwood, and others are not able to submit to this abuse with as much composure as myself, and to stop their clamor Fox desires to challenge the Chamber of Commerce to a trial of speed. I told him that nothing would be made by it. If we were to have a trial and they were beaten, they would at once abuse the Navy Department for wasting time and money in boat-racing. Governor Dennison was present and thought the effect of a race would on the whole be well. The Naval Committee are detaining the Eutaw here, and that boat might be used. Somewhat reluctantly and doubtingly I assented to his writing a letter to G. W. Blunt, who I suspect first proposed it.

Have a strange letter from C. B. Sedgwick, who is under pay, revising the Navy laws, but spends much of his time in advocating suspicious claims from scheming contractors. He advises, with some tact and ability, an abandonment of the trials now in progress in Philadelphia for malfeasance.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 511-2

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, August 10, 1863

Have not been well for the last two days, and am still indisposed, but cannot omit duties. The weather is oppressively warm. Friends think I ought to take a few days repose. Dr. Horwitz advises it most earnestly. Rest and a change of atmosphere might be of service, but I think quiet here better than excitement and uncertainty elsewhere. I had arranged in my own mind to spend a couple of weeks in entire seclusion at Woodcliff, but M., after the exhibition of mob hostility in New York, is apprehensive that my presence there will jeopardize him and his property. I must therefore seek another place if I go from Washington, which I now think is hardly probable.

The papers are discussing very liberally the Parliamentary statement of Laird and my denial. To sustain himself, Laird publishes an anonymous correspondence with some one who professes to be intimate with the “Minister of the Navy.” His correspondence, if genuine, I have reason to believe was with Howard of Brooklyn, whom I do not know and who is untruthful.

Charles B. Sedgwick, Chairman of the Naval Committee of the House, writes Chief Clerk Faxon, that Howard called on him in the summer of 1861 in behalf of the Lairds, with plans and specifications and estimates for vessels; that he, Sedgwick, referred H. to me; that I refused to negotiate. In other words, I doubtless refused to entertain any proposition. Of Howard I know very little, having never, that I am aware, seen him. I may have done so as the agent or friend of Laird in 1861, and if so declined any offer. From his letters to Laird I judge he tried to palm himself on Laird for all he was worth, and as possessing an intimacy which I neither recognize nor admit. He seems to have gone to the Naval Committee instead of the Navy Department or “Minister of the Navy” with his plans. Was confessedly an agent of Laird, who is an unmitigated liar and hypocrite. Professing to be an antislavery man from principle and an earnest friend of the Union, he and his firm have for money been engaged in the service of the slaveholders to break up our Union.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 395-6

Telegram from General Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis, May 7, 1863

Recd at Richmond May 7, 1863.

By telegraph from Fredericksburg 7

Chancellorsville, May 7,1863.

To His Excellency, President Davis: —

After driving General Sedgwick across the Rappahannock on the night of the 4th, I returned on the 5th to Chancellorsville. The march was delayed by a storm which continued the whole night following. In placing the troops in position on the morning of the 6th, to attack Hooker's army, I ascertained he had abandoned his fortified position. A line of skirmishers pressed forward until they came within range of the enemy's batteries, planted on the north of the Rappahannock, which, from the configuration of the ground, completely commanded this side. His army, therefore, escaped with the loss of a few additional prisoners.

R. E. Lee, General Commanding.

SOURCES: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 314; Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee's Dispatches: Unpublished Letters of General Robert E. Lee, C.S.A., to Jefferson Davis and the War Department of the Confederate States of America, p. 90; James Dabney McCabe, Life and Campaigns of General Robert E. Lee, p. 363-4; William Wallace Bennett, A Narrative of the Great Revival which Prevailed in the Southern Armies, p. 287; De Bow's Review Devoted to the Restoration of the Southern States and the Development of the Wealth and Resources of the Country, Volume 3, p. 204.  All above sources offer slightly different transcriptions of this message in wording but in meaning are identical.

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday Night, March 7, 1863

The week has been one of steady, incessant employment. I feel I have been overtasked and am much exhausted. Must have rest.

Two rather important bills were got, I may say smuggled, through Congress, affecting the Navy Department, which I never saw. One of them, relating to an Advisory Board, was brought to the President for approval on the 4th of March, which he handed to me. On a hasty perusal I requested him not to sign it until it could have a more thorough examination. We sent for Grimes to make inquiry concerning it. He said the bill had never been discussed; he did not approve of it; that he had expected it would be killed in the House. The President passed it to me for criticism and farther examination, and return to him with my views. The other bill relates to matters of prize, and must have been got through surreptitiously. It is crude and objectionable in several respects.

Sedgwick, Chairman of the Naval Committee in the House, has been active in getting through a bill for the codification of the naval laws, and expects to perform the service of codification. All in the Department and the officers generally desire him to perform the service, but there are objections in my mind to his selection, which I should urge, were it not that the President has another candidate, a gentleman who has no knowledge of naval affairs or naval or admiralty law, but who, qualified or not, wants a place.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 245-6

John M. Forbes to Congressman Charles B. Sedgwick, February 16, 1863

You have piped and I have not danced; you have called and I have not come, though my trunk has been packed for ten days. Now I am busy, besides the Second Cavalry, in raising a negro regiment (see circular), also in raising a Union Club, and in various other little ways; but the Second Massachusetts and its young captain will not get off for some six weeks yet (probably), and if you think I can do any good, by coming on, towards pushing up members for any of the great measures of the session, such as I regard the Missouri bill.¹ I will come almost any day upon getting a telegram or letter from you.

_______________

¹ Abolishing slavery in Missouri and compensating loyal owners.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 2, p. 1-2

Congressman Charles B. Sedgwick to John M. Forbes, December 22, 1862

Washington, 22d December, 1862.

My Dear Mr. Forbes, — I have shown your letter (copy) to Mr. Fessenden to several conservative gentlemen of my acquaintance. They all agree in saying that it would be well to send on a strong delegation of clergy and laity to urge on the President. Some doubt his intention to issue the proclamation of 1st January; I do not. Many assert, more fear, that it will be essentially modified from what is promised. I do not fear this; but what I do fear is, that he will stop with the proclamation and take no active and vigorous measures to insure its efficacy. I say he will issue it, because it is his own offspring, which Seward tried hard to strangle at its birth, and failed to do it. If the President don't tell you all about it some time, I will, as I heard the story from the chief himself. Judge Kelly told me this evening he had just come from Stanton, who told him that the President and Burnside had been there but a little while before, and this subject coming up, the President said “that he could not stop the Proclamation if he would, and he would not if he could; that just as soon as the first of January dawned it would be issued.” So I cannot doubt that it will be issued. There are other facts within my knowledge which convince me that it will certainly go forth. Every conceivable influence has been brought to bear upon him to induce him to withhold or modify, — threats, entreaties, all sorts of humbugs, but he is firm as a mule.

Now if Banks can start from Mobile or New Orleans with a sufficient army, or send Butler, which will be equally well, perhaps, armed with this proclamation, and enlist every able-bodied, willing, loyal negro, as he progresses into the country, until he has 100,000 of them under arms, the great work will be accomplished. If Banks was sent South for some such purpose, the expedition is a sensible one; if not, it is pure strategy, and not worth, in the aggregate, so much as one of the rotten ships in which it was embarked. I say by all means come on and be here in force the last of this month. Be ready to shout Hallelujah on the morning of 1st January, and let the President know that he is to have sympathy and support. By all means, put him up to practical measures to make it successful. Tell him the world will pardon his crimes, and his stories even, if he only makes the proclamation a success, and that if he fails he will be gibbeted in history as a great, long-legged, awkward, country pettifogger, without brains or backbone.

We have had a nice row in the cabinet. The Senate had a secret caucus and resolved to get rid of the President's evil genius, Seward. Preston King, fearing Seward, loose, would endanger his prospects for senator, slipped out and told Seward all about it. Seward tendered his resignation Wednesday evening. By Thursday morning his friends began to pour in, to threaten the President if he accepted it. The world in general only found it out on Friday. Chase, like a good boy, on Saturday went out to bring little wandering Willie back. The telegraph is forbidden to carry the startling news to the country, except, now, to my Lord Thurlow¹and some others; and on Monday all goes “merry as a marriage bell” again. So the Senate is snubbed, Seward is more powerful than ever, Chase's radical friends are disgusted that he has been used to save Seward from his folly, and the great chasm into which the administration was to fall is bridged. Vive la Humbug!

_______________

¹ Thurlow Weed, editor of the Albany Journal, Mr. Seward's right-hand man. — Ed.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 344-6

Congressman Charles B. Sedgwick to John M. Forbes, June 28, 1862

Washington, 28th June, 1862.

My Dear Mr. Forbes, — Well, by Jove, if this isn't the luckiest escape I ever had! I have been swearing at myself the last fortnight for abusing you like a pickpocket, taking no notice of your friendly letters which by way of penance I have kept on my table where I should see them on coming in or going out, on lying down and rising up, expecting every day to hear that you had denied on ’Change having ever seen me, and now comes your letter offering an apology. Good! make it! it shall be accepted, although your last letter was abusive. The truth is I vowed never to write you until I had settled for you the inclosed account,¹ which you sent me just twenty-seven days ago. They tried to send it back, but I said no, I wanted it paid, and I have only just got it, although it appears to have been made out several days. Please sign it in all the places where you see room for your name and return it to me, and I will hand over the money to the Sanitary, if you still remain charitably inclined.

. . . I showed H. your letter about generals giving certificates to loyal blacks who had served the government, which would serve as manumission deeds to them and their families. It seemed to go through his feathers as a good practical idea, and he has taken the letter home to Ohio to consider of it and sit on it!

I have yet some hopes; I think the tone of Congress is improving, but very slowly. If Mallory don't succeed in hanging me, as he proposes, I may bring them up to something practical yet.

Grimes is crowding the principle of your suggestion in the Senate and says he shall pass it. There is a scriptural objection, however, to success; it is written that “you may bray an ass in a mortar, she will not be wise.” How would firing them out of Porter's mortar answer? After we have been whipped a few times, as we were on James Island, I think our ideas on the subject of natural allies will be improved. Do you see that your friend Fremont has been kicking out of the traces again? I fear J. has been putting him up to this folly. You will have to give him up as one of the impracticables, and go in for some more steady and less mercurial general.

About Naushon; I should like to swing a hammock under a beech in the forests there about 15th August and sleep for two weeks. I am tired out; we have pretty much reorganized the whole Navy Department. I have worked hard upon it and am fatigued. After making it all over new, would it not be well enough to give it a new head?  . . . After being home three or four weeks I want to come down to your kingdom by the sea to rest. I will bring my wife down to talk. Please let me know what time in the last half of August it will be convenient for you to see us.

I am very sorry for that reverse in Charleston. I shall try and make a row about it, but I suppose it will do no good until Richmond is taken. If you find money hard to be got let us know and we will get out another batch of greenbacks. The next bill will make provision for a large government paper-mill, and so we will save all the profits. With kind regards to Mrs. F. and the children.

_______________

¹ Of expenses incurred on the Ship Commission.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 320-2

John M. Forbes to Congressman Charles B. Sedgwick, June 27, 1862

Boston, June 27,1862.

My Dear Mr. Sedgwick, — I have not heard a word from you since I wrote you an abusive letter because you did not go far enough in your bill. I will take it all back if you are offended, and make the most abject apologies! What is the present market price of a senator? S. was rather dear at fifty, but I suppose he was rather high up on the committee!

When are you coming this way, and when will you and Mrs. Sedgwick give us a visit at Naushon? We shall go there some time next month.

I was sorry, but not surprised, to see that we had had a rebuff at Charleston.¹ When I returned from Port Royal, I wrote to Senator Wilson urging reinforcements and predicting disaster if we went without them. I don't think now our forces are safe on the Sea Islands, outside the guns of the navy, without reinforcements.

Very truly yours,

J. M. Forbes.

How beautifully easy you legislators have made money! How valuable your restriction to one hundred millions!

_______________

¹ Probably referring to a skirmish at Secessionville, S. C, in which the Union forces were defeated.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 318-9

John M. Forbes to Congressman Charles B. Sedgwick, June 7, 1862

Boston, June 7, 1862.

My Dear Mr. Sedgwick, — Cannot you get some ingenuous Hunker . . . to offer a little simple amendment to the emancipation bill that shall provide for the freedom of any slave (and his family) who may serve the United States, a certificate from the military officer cognizant of such service to be his warrant for free papers from any court of record, etc., etc., loyal masters to be compensated — rascals not? Such an amendment, coming from a radical, disorganizing red Republican like C. B. S. of Syracuse, would be of course summarily put down; there must always be a ferocious cat, or royal Bengal tiger rather, under his meal! but such an innocent and proper provision would be, I suppose, unanimously adopted if offered by some moderate Republican. Our good friend Horton now would carry it nim. con., unless you radicals, from the mere force of habit, oppose him. . . .

General Hunter hit the nail on the head when he said to me, “I want to find out whether we, as well as the rebels, are fighting chiefly for the preservation of slavery!”

Trebly conservative as I am, I sometimes get so disgusted with the timidity and folly of our moderate Republicans that I should go in and join the Abolitionists if these last were not so arbitrary and illiberal that no man of independence can live in the house with them.

Yours,

J. M. F

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 316-7

Major-General John Sedgwick to his Sister, July 17, 1863

Berlin, Few Miles From Harper's Ferry,

July 17, 1863.

My dear sister:

I received your letter of the 10th instant last night. This is the first day in the last twenty that we have not been on the move or engaged in the presence of the enemy, and it is a wet, dreary day. You have no doubt read that the enemy crossed the river at Williamsport on the 13th. Their forces now are far superior in numbers to ours. You will hear of the immense reinforcements that are being sent to this army, and wonder why we do not crush their army. All the troops sent us are thirty days' militia and nine months' volunteers, and are perfectly useless. I am tired of risking my corps in such unequal contests.

Captain Halsted will write you to-day, giving you a sketch of our marches for the last few days. The battles around Gettysburg were victorious, and had we been reinforced we could have made it a rout.

I enclose a letter from another John Sedgwick, wanting to know something of our family. I wish you would send it to Cousin Charles of Sharon and ask him to answer it. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the “tree” to give him the information.

I am glad you have found everything so pleasant and looking so beautiful around our home. I sincerely wish I was there with you to enjoy it. If it was not for that terrible riot in New York, which has been worse to us than the loss of a great battle, everything would look as if a termination to the Rebellion was at hand.

I am, as ever,

Your affectionate brother,

J. S.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, Correspondence of John Sedgwick, Major-General, Volume 2, p. 131-3

John M. Forbes to Congressman Charles B. Sedgwick, June 2, 1862

June 2,1862.

My Dear Mr. Sedgwick, — I see I forgot the 21stly, as the old parsons used to say, of my sermon; my amen to your emancipation speech.

If you have such a devilish poor set in Congress that they are afraid to pass your bill, for freeing such slaves as come to our aid, you had better give up trying for any emancipation bill until Parson Brownlow, General Rodgers, and other pro-slavery border state men have cultivated the manliness of Congress up to the Tennessee standard! Why, I hear that the border state Unionists everywhere are in advance of Congress, and go for strangling the rebellion through its vitals, not pinching the ends of its toes! Rather than take anything worse than your bill, I would trust to old Abe's being pushed up to the use of the military powers of emancipation. What infernal nonsense is your present law, making freedom the reward of those who serve the enemy, while their masters only promise them hanging and burning if they serve us.

You carry on the war in such a manner that either slaves or other loyal men in the border and rebel States have one plain road to safety open; namely, to help the rebels. You reward the slaves with freedom for such help: you offer them no reward, except the chance of being shot by us and hanged by their masters, if they come into our lines! . . .

Your lame confiscation bill will be no terror to the rebels, but rather an indication of the mildness with which you will treat them hereafter, and the many exceptions you will make if you pass any confiscation acts.

I only wonder with such a policy that any Union men show their heads! All your efforts seem to be to make rebellion cheap and easy, and loyalty hard and dangerous.

In great haste, I bide yours,

J. M. Forbes

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 315-6

Congressman Charles Baldwin Sedgwick to John M. Forbes, March 6, 1862 – 4 p.m.

Washington, 18 May, 1862.

. . . I hope God will give his servant Abraham the grace to stand by his general and not let the border state men sacrifice him. I cannot say, however, that I have the highest degree of faith in a president who thinks it necessary to salvation to allow the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law in this District at this time. . . .

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 308-9