Gideon Welles

Gideon Welles arrived by horseback at the Episcopal Academy of Connecticut in 1819. His rise to prominence as the secretary of the Navy for President Abraham Lincoln is fairly well known among historians.

Welles graduated from the Academy in 1821 after attending for two years. He received a college diploma in 1826 from what is now Norwich University in Vermont. Welles returned to his home state after graduation and soon began writing for the now defunct “Hartford Times” newspaper.

In 1827, he became the editor and part owner of the “Times.” That same year, Welles was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly, becoming the youngest to serve in the legislature. He held the office until 1835 when he was elected as comptroller for the state of Connecticut. Welles also continued to write opinion pieces for the paper until 1854.

Newspapers of the era were often aligned with a specific political party. The “Times” followed the trend and Welles wrote editorials in support of Democrats. In 1836, his loyalty was acknowledged when Welles was appointed as Hartford’s postmaster. He held the job for five years. Then in 1846, Pres. James Polk appointed Welles as chairman of the Navy’s Bureau of Provisions and Clothing, a post he held for three years.

By the middle of the next decade, according to the Connecticut Historical Society, Welles was no longer allowed to write for the “Times” because in 1855, he organized and formed the state’s Republican Party.

PORTRAIT OF GIDEON WELLES, CLASS OF 1824

With his switch of ideals, Welles looked for a new vehicle to publicize his stance. His solution was to open a new publishing avenue by launching “The Hartford Evening News.” Welles backed anti-slavery; the Democrats of the era were the pro-slavery party. By this time, Welles was firmly established as a politician and policymaker and was gaining the attention of powerful national figures. He campaigned for Abraham Lincoln after the Illinois politician won the Republican presidential primary in 1860. The two briefly met in Hartford later that year while Lincoln was on a campaign swing through the state.

As president-elect, Lincoln began to consider who he would appoint to his cabinet. J. Ronald Spencer, editor of “A Connecticut Yankee in Lincoln’s Cabinet - Navy Secretary Gideon Welles Chronicles the Civil War,” wrote that Lincoln was determined to give one seat on his cabinet to a prominent New Englander. That Yankee was to be Welles.

Secretary of the Navy

He didn’t learn of his appointment to the cabinet until just four days before the inauguration in March 1861. It was another month before Welles found out he had been chosen to be Secretary of the Navy (he thought he may have been appointed postmaster general).

In the introduction to the “Diary of Gideon Welles,” editor John T. Morse wrote humorously about the appointment. “Mr. Lincoln may have thought that any New Englander was amphibious,” because residents lived near the ocean. Lincoln was fond of Welles, and keeping with the ocean theme, called him “Father Neptune.”

While his appointment was a surprise to many, an editorial in the “Washington Star” newspaper stated that “Welles administered the department in such a satisfactory manner during the war that he served through two [presidential] administrations … and served the longest continuous secretaryship since the days of [Pres. James] Madison.”

Welles at the time was one of only four Connecticut residents to have been appointed to a cabinet post by a president. Newspapers reported that some members of Lincoln’s administration were disappointed at the selection of Welles. They believed that “someone with more real sea-salt experience than Mr. Welles would fill the place better.”

When excerpts of Welles’ diaries were first made public in the “Atlantic Magazine” in 1909, they showed that the Connecticut native responded to the “sea-salt” comment by writing that the detractors were “officious blockheads,” and “factious fools.” A book review from 1943 in the “New York Times” notes that Welles “was a strange man, this Yankee who, like John Quincy Adams, found release for his publicly controlled feelings only in his diary.”

State records show Welles was described “as a man of no decorations; there was no noise in the streets when he went along; he understood duty and he did it efficiently, continually, and unwaveringly.” The passage was written by Charles Dana, Lincoln’s Assistant Secretary of War. Welles served in the cabinet from 1861-1869.

Gideon's Legacy

A biography on Welles written by the New York Public Library notes that “Welles and his wife, Mary, became quite close to the Lincoln family. In fact, Welles was in the room (in the Peterson House) when President Lincoln died from his gunshot wound,” in 1865.

Welles died in 1878 at the age of 76, about a decade after leaving office. The state historical society credits him with the “development of the Navy into a force that could successfully execute blockades of southern ports. [It] was a key factor in the North’s Civil War victory. Also, he was instrumental in the construction of the ironclad USS Monitor and establishment of the Navy’s Medal of Honor.”

Welles’ diligent and nearly daily entries in his diary while serving in the cabinet have been released in a variety of forms. One of the most recently published, with the original manuscript restored, is the 2014 edition by the University of Illinois Press called “The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy.” A review of the book from StrategyPage.com, an online magazine about the military, describes Welles as an insider whose diary provides a rare perspective. “We get a vivid look at how confusing and frightening the opening weeks of the Lincoln administration seemed to those experiencing them,” the review states.

A marble statue of Welles was installed circa 1933 at the Connecticut State Capitol building. Connecticuthistory.org notes the statue commemorates his achievements both within the state and in Lincoln’s cabinet. In 1969, Cheshire Academy named its renovated dining hall after their famed alumnus. His portrait and a biography are displayed in the brick building originally constructed in 1926. A middle school in his hometown of Glastonbury is also named for Welles.

See scans of Welles' diary entries and links to original sources online at magazine.cheshireacademy.org/archives

In Welles' Words

A little known fact about Welles, which was only recently discovered in the Academy’s archives, is a written account of his first few days at the Academy. Welles’ words, contained in one of his school books, reveal a longing to return to his home in Glastonbury.

October 21, 1819

This day to my surprise I was coming from school [and] I unexpectedly met my brother Thaddeus - my joy was great.

October 22, 1819

My brother this morning started for home. I yearned to go with him but thought of the duty to my purpose and the bent of fathers’ and was silent. The tears (of thoughts of the happy hours I have spent with my brother) rolled down my cheeks - the cutting thoughts of abusing that brother came... and filled me with anger. Goodbye to you all remember me when I am where you are not.”

Welles was 17 years old when his father, Samuel Welles, enrolled him in the Academy. According to an article written for “Cheshirepedia” by alumnus John Fournier ’84, the father decided it was time for his son to learn “the duties of life."

Patriarch Samuel Welles supported his wife and four sons by working in a variety of business-oriented professions: merchant, crops exporter, and money lender. Based on entries in Gideon Welles’ schoolbook, headlined “Debtors,” it’s possible he watched his father offering loans and decided to try it for himself.

Several pages in his small paper-covered book contain names of classmates who owed Welles money. His arithmetic shows, for instance, that fellow student Amasa Jackson (who went on to Westpoint) steadily borrowed funds from Welles.