Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, May 11, 1863

The President sent a note to my house early this morning, requesting me to call at the Executive Mansion on my way to the Department. When there he took from a drawer two dispatches written by the Secretary of State to Lord Lyons, in relation to prize captures. As they had reference to naval matters, he wished my views in regard to them and the subject-matter generally. I told him these dispatches were not particularly objectionable, but that Mr. Seward in these matters seemed not to have a correct apprehension of the duties and rights of the Executive and other Departments of the Government. There were, however, in this correspondence allusions to violations of international law and of instructions which were within his province, and which it might be well to correct; but as a general thing it would be better that the Secretary of State and the Executive should not, unless necessary, interfere in these matters, but leave them where they properly and legally belonged, with the judiciary. [I said] that Lord Lyons would present these demands or claims as long as the Executive would give them consideration, — acquiesced, responded, and assumed to grant relief, — but that it was wholly improper, and would, besides being irregular, cause him and also the State and Navy Departments great labor which does not belong to either. The President said he could see I was right, but that in this instance, perhaps, it would be best, if I did not seriously object, that these dispatches should go on; but he wished me to see them.

When I got to the Department, I found a letter from Mr. Seward, inclosing one from Lord Lyons stating that complaint had been made to his Government that passengers on the Peterhoff had been imprisoned and detained, and were entitled to damages. As the opportunity was a good one, I improved it to communicate to him in writing, what I have repeatedly done in conversation, that in the present state of the proceedings there should be no interference on his part, that these are matters for adjudication by the courts rather than for diplomacy or Executive action, and until the judicial power is exhausted, it is not advisable for the Departments to interfere, etc. The letter was not finished in season to be copied to-day, but I will get it to him to-morrow, I hope in season for him to read before getting off his dispatches.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 296-7

John M. Forbes to George Ashburner, August 31, 1861

[Naushon, August 31, 1861.]

I feel as if I had been very negligent in not before thanking you for your most thorough and useful data about iron plates, which will be of great help to the department when they come to decide upon how to build. Red tape, I fear, is not confined to the Crimea! And where there are real difficulties about the iron plates, and lots of plain work to be done in other directions, the plans mature slowly!

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 244-5

William Cullen Bryant to John M. Forbes, August 27, 1861

Office Of The Evening Post,

New York, August 27, 1861.

I do not much like the idea of putting Sherman into the Treasury Department. He would make, I think, a better secretary of war. The great objection I have to him in the Treasury Department is that, so far as I understand the matter, he is committed, as the saying is, to that foolish Morrill tariff. Yet I am very certain that it would be considered by the country an immense improvement of the Cabinet to place him in the War Department. The country has a high opinion of his energy and resolution and practical character.

Of Governor Andrew I do not know as much as you do, though I have formed a favorable judgment of his character and capacity — not a very precise one, however. . . .

They talk of H. here as they do with you, but I am persuaded that the disqualification I have mentioned would breed trouble in the end. The dissatisfaction with Cameron seems to grow more and more vehement every day. His presence taints the reputation of the whole Cabinet, and I think he should be ousted at once. I am sorry to say that a good deal of censure is thrown here upon my good friend Welles, of the Navy Department. He is too deliberate for the temper of our commercial men, who cannot bear to see the pirates of the rebel government capturing our merchant ships one after another and defying the whole United States navy. The Sumter and the Jeff Davis seem to have a charmed existence. Yet it seems to me that new vigor has of late been infused into the Navy Department, and perhaps we underrated the difficulties of rescuing the navy from the wretched state in which that miserable creature Toucey left it. There is a committee of our financial men at present at Washington, who have gone on to confer with the President, and it is possible that they may bring back a better report of the Navy Department than they expected to be able to make.

Rumor is unfavorably busy with Mr. Seward, but as a counterpoise it is confidently said that a mutual aversion has sprung up between him and Cameron. This may be so. The “Times,” I see, does not spare Cameron, nor the “Herald.” There is a good deal of talk here about a reconciliation between Weed and Bennett, and a friendly dinner together, and the attacks which the “Herald” is making upon the War and Navy Department, are said to be the result of an understanding between them. Who knows, or who cares much?

I have emptied into this letter substantially all I have to say. There are doubtless men in private life who would fill the War Department as well as any I have mentioned, but the world knows not their merits, and might receive their names with a feeling of disappointment.

P. S. — With regard to visiting Naushon, I should certainly like it, and like to bring my wife. I have another visit to make, however, in another part of Massachusetts; but I shall keep your kind invitation in mind and will write you again.

W. C. B.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 242-4

Senator James W. Grimes to William P. Fessenden, July 19, 1865

Burlington, July 19, 1865.

Your letter leads me to think that you may possibly be inclined to come West, though I am quite skeptical on the subject. I do hope you will come; I think you ought to come, not for your own pleasure, or the pleasure of your friends alone, but as a leading public man you ought to see this country for yourself. I am only a few hours' ride from Chicago, but in a far more quiet, respectable, moral, healthy, comfortable place. I cannot promise you the luxuries of a commercial metropolis on the seacoast, but I will feed you on grapes if you are here in September, and intoxicate you with their pure juice. I have between seven hundred and eight hundred vines loaded down with most promising grapes, though we have much wet weather, which is not propitious.

Of course, I always give a hearty support to the Administration, as in duty bound, but we will reserve our quarrel about the Navy Department, the Administration, and Charles Sumner, until you come here. I prefer to fight you in my own barn-yard. Mrs. Grimes says she shall never forgive you, if you do not come to see us, and spend at least two weeks with us.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 280

Brigadier General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, December 30, 1861

CAMP PIERPONT, VA., December 30, 1861.

I intended yesterday (Sunday) to have written you a long letter, but just as I was getting ready to do so, orders came for a review by Governor Curtin. The review and attendant duties occupied pretty much the balance of the day. After the review, which passed off very well, Ord's, or the Third Brigade, was addressed by Governor Curtin, who eulogized their conduct at Dranesville, thanked them in the name of the people of Pennsylvania, and said he had directed the word Dranesville to be inscribed on the banner of each regiment in the brigade. Secretary Cameron, who was present, asked very kindly after you, and hoped you were quite well. Among Governor Curtin's cortege was Craig Biddle,¹ who seemed glad to see me, and said he had seen you only a few days ago in the street. General McClellan has issued a complimentary order, in which he returns his special thanks to General Ord and his brigade for the fight, and to McCall and the division for the prompt measures taken to repel the advance of reinforcements.

Well, the vexed Trent affair is settled, and just as I expected it would be. Seward's letter I do not like. It is specious and pettifogging. Had Mr. Seward written this letter immediately on receipt of the intelligence of the capture, and examination of the subject, then it would have been all right and honorable; but I do not understand the manliness of not finding out you are wrong until a demand is made for reparation, particularly as, anterior to that demand and its consequences, everything was done by Congress and the Navy Department, the press and all jurists, to insist on the justice and legality of the act. It is a clear case of backing out, with our tracks very badly covered up. I would have preferred insisting on the act being legal, but yielded on the broad ground of superior force and our inability at the present moment to resist the outrage. I think the course of England has been most disgraceful and unworthy of a great nation, and I feel confident that, if ever this domestic war of ours is settled, it will require but the slightest pretext to bring about a war with England.

__________

¹ Craig Biddle, of Philadelphia, afterward a judge of the court of common pleas.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 240-1

The New York Chamber of Commerce . . .

. . . has passed a resolution charging the Naval Department with “culpable neglect” in not preparing in Hampton Roads, of the better reception of the Merrimac.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 22, 1862, p. 1

The Escape of the Nashville

Sufficient explanation has been made by the Navy Department to convince all fair-minded men that the escape of the Nashville was due alone to the fact that the Department had no vessels within its reach to prevent it. The various naval expeditions, and the coast blockade, have occupied every vessel as fast as it could be fitted out. As soon as it was known that the Nashville had arrived, which was on the 4th of March, the Secretary of the Navy telegraphed to various stations, but was unable to reach any vessels suitable for the propose, except those undergoing repairs. He was answered from Boston that two gunboats would be ready in two or three days; but owning to a defect discovered in the engine of one, and delay of the other from some similar cause, they did not leave till the 14th, and when they arrived at Fortress Monroe the Nashville had escaped.

The gunboat Georgia, which had been of Beaufort, was obliged to come into port for coal at the same time the Nashville escaped. – The abuse which has been heaped upon Secretary Welles for this matter was totally ignorant and senseless, and it is notable that this unscrupulous attempt to make the head of the Naval Department odious, seems to come almost entirely from the papers which insist that the waste of our resources on land shall not be criticized, because it may impair public confidence in that direction; and thereby injure the public service. – Cin. Gaz.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, April 14, 1862, p. 2

Special to New York Papers

(Tribune’s Dispatch)

WASHISNGTON, April 22. – The General Commanding at the Warwick Creek fight whose reported condition on that occasion called forth Representative Morrill’s resolution empowering the President to cashier drunken officers is said to be Gen. Wm. F. Smith. It is stated that he fell from his horse twice, spearing his clothes and face with mud. Mr. Morrill said that the two companies of Green Mountain boys stood in the marsh fifty minutes without support or orders to retreat.

Most of the friends of Mr. Bingham’s confiscation bill feel sanguine that the House will pass it under the previous question tomorrow. It is believe that the vote will be a rather close one.

Several vessels of the river flotilla have been up the Rappahannock, some of them as far as Fredericksburg. About nine miles above the Tappahannock a schooner had been sunk to obstruct the river, but Commander Wigman in the Yankee, with his consorts, pushed their way through. At one point the boats were fired upon by musketry. No one on board was injured. Twelve or thirteen vessels, two of them steamers, found in creeks were brought down. The river is now considered open for navigation, and timber for rebuilding bridges burned by the rebels, will soon reach Falmouth. Nothing has been heard of the rebel force but it is supposed to be in force not far back of Fredericksburg.

The finance Committee of the Senate has done with the machinery sections of the tax bill, having made such amendments as in its judgment was calculated to perfect the system adopted by the House. An effort was made to raise the tax on whiskey and other distilled spirits to twenty five cents a gallon, but the committee decided to impose some charge on stock in hand on the 30th of June, when the act is to go into operation, but left it to a sub committee to decide how much it should be. The tax on beer and other fermented liquors will be two dollars a barrel instead of one dollar. No other changes have yet been made.

Charles A. Dana, of New York, has been appointed by Secretary Stanton as one of the Commissioners to investigate the war accounts at Cairo.

Professor Bache and Mr. Westervelt have declined to serve on the Board appointed to examine the Steven’ Battery.


(Times’ Dispatch.)

WASHINGTON, April 23. – An officer of artillery in town to night from near Warrenton Junction reports the rebels in strong force on the south bank of the Rappahannock in the direction of Gordonville. Gen. Ewell is said to be at the crossing of the river where the Railroad bridge was burned, with five hundred men. Gen. G. W. Smith is at Gordonville strongly entrenched, with thirty thousand men, and Gen. Jackson is crossing over from the Shenandoah Valley to unite 8,000 to the force, making it a total column of 46,000 men. If the figures are reliable we are in sufficient force in front of Manassas to manage this rebel army.

I am assured by a gentleman of this city whose position brings him in business contact with Mr. Mercier that his mission had reference only to a large amount of valuable tobacco belonging to the French Government. The property is known as the Belmont tobacco. While there it is said that M. Mercier examined somewhat into the condition of the bogus Confederacy, in order to report to the Emperor the true condition of things.


(Herald’s Special.)

WASHINGTON, April 23 – A change in the Navy Department has been positively determined upon. The President is waiting only to fix upon the individual who is to fill the place of Secretary of the Navy. Gen. Banks, Judge Davis, of Illinois, and Gov. Sprague, of Rhode Island are all strongly urged for this distinction, but the selection has not yet been made.


(Special to Post.)

The sensation story in the Philadelphia Inquirer of this morning, to the effect that Secretary Welles is to be removed is entirely untrue. This I learn on good authority. I learn that Mr. Welles sometime since tendered his resignation to the President, but it was not accepted. Probably this circumstance has given rise to the rumor of an immediate change in the Cabinet. All the current reports of the removal of Mr. Welles are destitute of foundation.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 26, 1862, p. 3

The Navy Department has ordered . . .

. . . the casting of fifty 16-inch Dahlgreen [sic] guns at Pittsburgh. – the Draughts of moulds, &c., have been prepared by Capt. Dahlgreen, and it is understood that the guns will be much shorter and thicker that the 16-inch Rodman gun. Most of them will be smooth bored, and are designated for use on board of the new vessels of the Monitor style, and others, whose construction has been already directed by Secretary Wells [sic].

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 26, 1862, p. 2