Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, December 8, 1864

The Senate have since commencement of the session labored over the question of continuing or displacing Hale from the position of Chairman of the Naval Committee. He has been, without cause or reason, a constant and vindictive opponent of the Department, at times annoying and almost embarrassing its action. I have forborne any controversy with him, and, in my acts and recommendations, have generally been sustained by Congress and the country. One year ago, at the commencement of this Congress, it appeared to me that the Senate owed to itself, not less than the Department and the country, the duty of substituting another for this factious and unworthy man. As they did not do it then, I scarcely expected they would do it now. He then appealed to them feelingly, and implored them to help him because his election was pending. Some of them thought the lesson had been instructive and would prove useful, as they assured me, and therefore voted for him. His conduct disappointed them but did not me.

This year he is not present, but went to Halifax the week before the session commenced, and from there writes a beseeching letter, begging to serve out the few weeks that remain of his Senatorial life on the Naval Committee. Sumner, who too often permits his personal sympathies to overrule public duty in matters of this kind, labored hard, I am told, for Hale. Action was postponed from day to day to gather strength, but a last attempt to retain him was made this morning and he received but seven votes. I have avoided, properly, introducing the subject to any Senator while the question was pending, and to three or four who have spoken to me, I have been cool and reserved. Yet, not unlikely, Hale will be violent and abusive towards me. Perhaps not; he is uncertain and unreliable. I feel indifferent. His career is about closed. It has never been useful or wholesome. He has no constructive ability; can attack and try to pull down, but is unable to successfully defend and build up.

The Members of Congress and the press, with scarcely an exception, are complimentary to my report. Even the New York Times and Herald commend it. But the Times of to-day has a captious, faultfinding article. It is dissatisfied, because, in stating facts, I mention that the Navy has been always ready to coöperate with the army at Wilmington, was ready and waited at Mobile, Texas, etc., etc. This the Times denounces as attacking the War Department or army. If to tell the truth is so construed, I cannot help it. For a long time the Times has been profuse in its censures of the Navy Department in regard to Wilmington. Mr. Seward, knowingly, was guilty of the same injustice in his speech delivered to the crowd from his parlor window the week of the election. These men do not wish the truth disclosed. They cannot romance and falsify me as they have done in this respect.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 193-4

Diary of Gideon Welles: Friday, December 18, 1863

Had a letter from Commodore Wilkes Monday evening, complaining that injustice was done him in my Annual Report. The letter was studiously impudent and characteristic, was untruthful in some respects, and unofficerlike generally. He requested it should be sent to Congress with his correspondence. I replied that such proceeding would be improper, and that it would not, of course, be complied with.

I understand that before my reply left the Department he had furnished copies of his letter to me to the newspapers, which he knows is in violation of regulations as well as of decorum. He had, I see, prepared his letter with great care, while my reply was offhand and hasty. I find his letter in the New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer. This discourtesy and repeated violation of regulations will necessitate a court martial with a troublesome man of a good deal of ability, of great leisure, and who is not delicate as regards means. Naval officers of experience have warned me that orders and favors to Wilkes would result in this, — that he is regardless of orders to himself, but tyrannical and exacting to others.

A charge of bribery against a Senator has resulted in John P. Hale's admission that he is the man referred to, acknowledging that he took the money, but that it was a fee not as a bribe. “Strange such a difference there should be twixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee.” This loud-mouthed paragon, whose boisterous professions of purity, and whose immense indignation against a corrupt world were so great that he delighted to misrepresent and belie them in order that his virtuous light might shine distinctly, is beginning to be exposed and rightly understood. But the whole is not told and never will be; he is a mass of corruption.

The steamer Chesapeake, seized by Rebel pirate mutineers, has been captured at Sambro, some twenty miles from Halifax. I was informed by telegram last night. Immediately sent word that she must be delivered over to the Colonial authorities, she having been captured in British waters. This order was sent within ten minutes after the telegram was received, the messenger who brought it waiting for the reply.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 489-90