Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, December 19, 1864

The contractors for the Puritan and Dictator are in trouble and embarrassed. Congress has extended to them relief, contingent on my action. If I do not so interpret the resolution as to render immediate assistance, I shall be censured for delay. If I take the responsibility of acting promptly and before reports are made the censure will be no less severe. That the contractors can fulfill all the stipulations, every one knows to be improbable, - I may say impossible. If I rigidly require them, the men will be ruined and the country not benefited. If I waive the impossible, and accept what is practicable, I shall give the censorious and malicious opportunities to assail and denounce me. I covet no such discretionary power.

Commodore Rodgers writes that the Dictator has arrived safely at Hampton Roads and performed satisfactorily, but fails to give details.

Captain Winslow called on me to-day. He is looking well and feels happy. Luck was with him in the fight with the Alabama.

The House of Representatives to-day passes a resolution of H. Winter Davis, aimed at the Secretary of State for his management of foreign affairs, and asserting the authority of the House in these matters. There is a disposition to make the legislative, fortunately the representative branch, the controlling power of the government. The whole was conceived in a bad spirit and is discreditable to the getters-up and those who passed the resolutions. Davis has never been, and never will be, a useful Member of Congress. Although possessing talents, he is factious, uneasy, and unprincipled. He is just now connected with a clique of malcontents, most of whom were gathering a few months (ago) around our present Chief Justice. An embryo party is forming and we shall see what comes of it and whether the ermine is soiled.

Wise of the Ordnance Bureau writes me a long letter in answer to a dispatch from Dahlgren in regard to casting solid and hollow guns, etc. It is a controversy in which I do not care to become embroiled. D. is sensitive and proud; W. has been meddlesome and perhaps unjust. D. feels hurt; W. feels rebuked.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 201-2

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, August 22, 1864

Mr. Fessenden returned yesterday,— a long absence for such a period as this. The course pursued at the Treasury Department in withholding money from the naval contractors for months after it is due is reprehensible and injurious in the highest degree to the public credit. Mr. F. is not responsible for this wrong. It was the work of Chase, who, in order to retire his interest-bearing notes, seized the money which legitimately belonged to the naval contractors to the amount of $12,000,000. As a consequence we shall lose some of our best contractors, who feel there is bad faith and no dependence on the government.

Some of the contractors for light-draft monitors are writing pressing letters. If disposed to act fairly, they should be promptly met; but if attempting to take advantage of our necessities, we must see that the public suffers no detriment.

Olcott, the detective, sends me a curious letter of E. Delafield Smith, with a not less curious indorsement by Olcott. Smith thinks the transactions of his office have been scrutinized and asks Olcott. O. inquires of me how he shall answer.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 114