Diary of Gideon Welles: June 8, 1865

The Santiago arrived at the Navy Yard, Washington, this day, shortly after meridian. My two sons, Edgar and Tom, were awaiting our arrival and came off in the boat to receive us. All were well.

Governor Dennison and myself called immediately on the President and reported our return. We found him with a delegation headed by Judge Sharkey from Mississippi, concerning the subject of reorganizing that State. The President was glad to receive us, and invited us, after introduction, to participate in the discussion. Subsequently, after the delegation had withdrawn, we briefly reported the results of our observation as to the condition and sentiments of the people of North and South Carolina and Georgia.

Found matters at the Department had proceeded satisfactorily. Some matters which might have been disposed of awaited my action.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 315

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, August 1, 1864

We yesterday had word that our forces had mined and blown up a fortification in front of Petersburg. All sorts of stories were current, some of them absurdly wild and ridiculous. Petersburg was said to be in flames. Our army were reported to have undermined & large portion of the city. Men of sense gave credit to the absurdity. I went over to the War Department, and Stanton showed me a telegram from Grant, stating the mine had been sprung, but the result is inconclusive, and evidently, I think, a disappointment. Stanton seemed uncertain and confused.

Exciting and silly stories prevailed about the raid into Pennsylvania. Street rumors put the Rebels at 40,000, and the press states that number, but reports are contradictory. Am still of the opinion that the force is small and the scare great. Governor Curtin and all Harrisburg are doubtless in a ferment. Was told the bells in Harrisburg were all ringing an alarm. I asked if it included the dinnerbell of Governor Curtin, for he would be frantic to stir up the people, and never disbelieved the largest fib that was sent abroad.

Had a letter from Tom this A.M., dated at Headquarters of the 18th Army Corps, at midnight of the 29th, stating an assault was to be made in the morning. Could not give details. There would be a sharp conflict, and he would do his duty. Bidding good-bye and sending love to all. This evening we hear from him after the fight, that he was well but tired and exhausted.

The President went yesterday to Fortress Monroe to meet General Grant, by prior arrangement, which made me distrust final operations at Petersburg, for if such were the fact, he could not well be absent. The President tells me the movement was well planned and well executed up to the closing struggle, when our men failed to do their duty. There must, I apprehend, have been fault in the officers also, not Grant, who originates nothing, is dull and heavy, but persistent.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 89-90

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, August 6, 1864

I had a telegram from Tom this morning, stating that Colonel Stedman was mortally wounded and would probably not survive the night, that General Ord desired his promotion without delay, that it might be received before his death, and wishing me to call at once on the President. I did so, who responded readily to the recommendation, and I then, at his request, saw Secretary Stanton, who met me in the right spirit.

While at the President's Blair came in, and the President informed us he had a telegram from Greeley, desiring the publication of the whole peace correspondence. Both Blair and myself advised it, but the President said he had telegraphed Greeley to come on, for he desired him to erase some of the lamentations in his longest letter. I told him while I regretted it was there, the whole had better be published. Blair said it would have to come to that ultimately. But the President thought it better that that part should be omitted.

I remarked that I had seen the Wade and Winter Davis protest. He said, Well, let them wriggle, but it was strange that Greeley, whom they made their organ in publishing the protest, approved his course and therein differed from the protestants. The protest is violent and abusive of the President, who is denounced with malignity for what I deem the prudent and wise omission to sign a law prescribing how and in what way the Union shall be reconstructed. There are many offensive features in the law, which is, in itself, a usurpation and abuse of authority. How or in what way or ways the several States are to put themselves right — retrieve their position - is in the future and cannot well be specified. There must be latitude given, and not a stiff and too stringent policy pursued in this respect by either the Executive or Congress. We have a Constitution, and there is still something in popular government.

In getting up this law it was as much an object of Mr. Winter Davis and some others to pull down the Administration as to reconstruct the Union. I think they had the former more directly in view than the latter. Davis's conduct is not surprising, but I should not have expected that Wade, who has a good deal of patriotic feeling, common sense, and a strong, though coarse and vulgar, mind, would have lent himself to such a despicable assault on the President.

There is, however, an infinity of party and personal intrigue just at this time. A Presidential election is approaching, and there are many aspirants, not only for Presidential but other honors or positions. H. Winter Davis has a good deal of talent but is rash and uncertain. There is scarcely a more ambitious man, and no one that cannot be more safely trusted. He is impulsive and mad and has been acute and contriving in this whole measure and has drawn Wade, who is ardent, and others into it. Sumner, I perceived, was bitten before he left Washington. Whether he has improved I am not informed. Sumner is not a constitutionalist, but more of a centralist than the generality of our people, and would be likely to sanction what seem to me some of the more offensive features of this bill. Consolidating makes it more a government of the people than of the States.

The assaults of these men on the Administration may break it down. They are, in their earnest zeal on the part of some, and ambition and malignity on the part of others, doing an injury that they cannot repair. I do not think Winter Davis is troubled in that respect, or like to be, but I cannot believe otherwise of Wade and others; yet the conduct of Wade for some time past, commencing with the organization of the present Congress in December last, has, after the amnesty proclamation and conciliatory policy of reconstruction, been in some respects strange and difficult to be accounted for, except as an aspiring factionist. I am inclined to believe that he has been bitten with the Presidential fever, is disappointed, and, in his disappointment, with a vague, indefinite hope that he may be successful, prompted and stimulated not only by Davis but Colfax, he has been flattered to do a foolish act.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 94-6

Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, July 20, 1864

My son, Thomas G. Welles, left to-day for the Army of the Potomac, having received orders from the War Department to report to General Grant. To part with him has been painful to me beyond what I can describe. Were he older and with more settled principles and habits, some of the anxieties which oppress me would be relieved. But he is yet a mere youth and has gone to the camp with boyish pride and enthusiasm, and will be in danger of being misled when beyond a parent's control. He is just eighteen and goes alone on his mission. I have tried to dissuade him so far as I could with propriety, but there was a point beyond which I could not well go. In the condition of the country and when others were periling their lives and the lives of their children, how could I refrain, and resist the earnest appeals of my son, whose heart was set upon going? To have positively prohibited him would have led to bad results, and perhaps not have accomplished the end desired. Yet it has been hard to part with him, and as he left me, I felt that it was uncertain whether we should ever meet again, and if we do he may be mutilated, and a ruined man. I have attended closely to my duties, but am sad, and unfit for any labor.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 82

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, July 16, 1864

Mr. Faxon, Chief Clerk, is ill and leaves for New York in the Tacoma. Shall greatly miss him. No one can fill his place. Thomas G. Welles is with his general, McCook, relieved from duty at Fort Stevens. I observe and have for some time past that the Gazette at Cincinnati, a paper in the interest of Mr. Chase, has been violent and reckless in its assaults on the Navy Department. With some smattering information of matters generally, there is much palpable ignorance in regard to our monitors, ordnance, etc.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 80

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, July 11, 1864

The Rebels are upon us. Having visited upper Maryland, they are turning their attention hitherward. General Wallace has been defeated, and it was yesterday current that General Tyler and Colonel Seward were prisoners, the latter wounded. But it seems only the last is true of the latter.

There is now a call from the War Department for gunboats at Havre de Grace, Gunpowder and Bush Rivers. Have ordered off three, but was afraid they would not arrive in season, for the call was not made and its necessity was scouted at Headquarters until the Rebels had cut the York and Baltimore Road. We have word by telegram this P.M. that the bridge over Gunpowder has been burned but a gunboat was on hand. Have no particulars.

Tom G. Welles was this day appointed to the staff of General McCook. I regret his passion for the service and his recklessness and youth.

The Rebel pickets appear in strength in front of Forts Stevens and DeRussy on the borders and within the District lines. Went to Stanton, but got from him nothing at all. He exhibits none of the alarm and fright I have seen in him on former occasions. It is evident he considers the force not large, or such that cannot be controlled, and yet he cannot tell their number nor where they are.

I rode out this evening to Fort Stevens, latterly called Fort Massachusetts. Found General Wright and General McCook with what I am assured is an ample force for its defense. Passed and met as we returned three or four thousand, perhaps more, volunteers under General Meigs, going to the front. Could see the line of pickets of both armies in the valley, extending a mile or more. There was continual firing, without many casualties so far as I could observe, or hear. Two houses in the vicinity were in flames, set on fire by our own people, because they obstructed the range of our guns and gave shelter to Rebel sharpshooters. Other houses and buildings had also been destroyed. A pretty grove nearly opposite the fort was being cut down. War would not spare the tree, if the woodman had.

I inquired where the Rebel force was, and the officers said over the hills, pointing in the direction of Silver Spring. Are they near Gunpowder or Baltimore? Where are they? Oh! within a short distance, a mile or two only. I asked why their whereabouts was not ascertained, and their strength known. The reply was that we had no fresh cavalry.

The truth is the forts around Washington have been vacated and the troops sent to General Grant, who was promised reinforcements to take Richmond. But he has been in its vicinity more than a month, resting, apparently, after his bloody march, but has effected nothing since his arrival on the James, nor displayed any strategy, while Lee has sent a force threatening the National Capital, and we are without force for its defense. Citizens are volunteering, and the employees in the navy yard are required to man the fortifications left destitute. Stanton and Halleck, who scouted Fenton's application and bluffed my inquiries, are now the most alarmed men in Washington.

I am sorry to see so little reliable intelligence. It strikes me that the whole demonstration is weak in numbers but strong in conception that the Rebels have but a small force. I am satisfied no attack is now to be apprehended on the city; the Rebels have lost a remarkable opportunity. But on our part there is neglect, ignorance, folly, imbecility, in the last degree. The Rebels are making a show of fight while they are stealing horses, cattle, etc., through Maryland. They might easily have captured Washington. Stanton, Halleck, and Grant are asleep or dumb.

The waste of war is terrible; the waste from imbecility and mismanagement is more terrible and more trying than from the ravages of the soldiers. It is impossible for the country to bear up under these monstrous errors and wrongs.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 71-3

Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, March 24, 1864

Tom and Admiral Dahlgren returned from Fortress Monroe, but without the remains of young Dahlgren.

We are running short of sailors and I have no immediate remedy. The army officers are not disposed to lose good men, and seem indifferent to the country and general welfare if their service can get along. Commodore Rowan writes that the times of the men are running out and no reenlistments; the army is paying enormous bounties. Between thirty and forty vessels are waiting crews.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 545-6

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, March 21, 1864

Wilson returned from New York on Saturday. Called to-day and made report in case of the contractors. Says the evidence is strong and conclusive against them; will be ready with charges and specifications in about a week. I told him it was my wish there should be a speedy trial; I also desired that the wives and counsel of the prisoners might visit them. Whiting, Solicitor of the War Department, called. My letter to the Secretary of War, requesting him to direct Whiting to give this Department his assistance and advice in criminal transactions was objectionable. The Secretary could not direct him, and he would not communicate with the Secretary because the word “direct” was in the note. Told him the mere misuse of a word should not be permitted to embarrass a public measure. That I was willing to substitute another word. He said he would prepare something to meet the case. Tells me that Seward refers questions to him, some affecting Navy captures. This is an eye-opener. The two are cunning, but they expose each other.

Tom¹ has gone with Admiral Dahlgren to Fortress Monroe after the body of his son Ulric, expected from Richmond.

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¹ Thomas G. Welles, son of the Secretary.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 544