Civil War News
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The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles “Father Neptune” navigated through the American Civil War, serving as Navy Secretary in President Lincoln’s cabinet. Thankfully, Gideon Welles also kept a diary, which offers modern researchers a glimpse inside the White House and Welles’s perspectives of various politicians and military officers. A brief history of the diary before focusing on the subject of this month’s column. Welles started his daily entries in the summer of 1862 and continued until his time in office ended in 1869. After appearing in a series of Galaxy articles in the 1870s, Welles’s son Edgar published the diary after his father’s death in 1878. The first edition appeared in a three-volume set
from Houghton Mifflin, circa 1911, and contained ‘edits’ from Edgar and omissions of certain accounts from the original. Most historians maintained a degree of skepticism on the accuracy of the newly published diaries. Years later, historian Howard K. Beale embarked on a mission of correcting the edited version. Still, Beale’s unique system of editing presented researchers with the troublesome task of deciphering Beales’s work. The Beale version rolled off the press in 1960. Finally, historian William E. Gienapp began editing the entire 10-volume set housed in the Library of Congress. William passed before completing the project, but thanks to his wife Erica, the editing continued. The Civil War Diaries of Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy: The Original Manuscript
Edition released in 2014, from the Knox College Lincoln Studies Center and the University of Illinois Press. August 11, 1862, marks the first entry in the diary. However, Welles later added a ‘Retrospective,’ which appears as an appendix in this latest version and provides accounts from March 6, 1861, through July 1862. Although Welles’s diary covered events through 1869, only Civil War accounts appear in this edition. The following examples offer a glimpse into the various thoughts of Father Neptune, as President Lincoln called his secretary. In September 1862, the focus of a cabinet meeting turned to Major General John Pope. Of the officer, Welles suggested, “…his father was a flatterer, a deceiver, a liar and a trickster. All the Popes are so.” While the cabinet discussed the aftermath of the Battle of Chickamauga, Welles noted of Rosecrans; the president had “… clearly lost confidence” in the officer. Welles expressed a “… doubt if we had any one equal to that command or the equal of Thomas, if a change was to be made. There was no one who, from what I had seen and know of him, was so fitted for that
December 2021 command as Genl Thomas.” In a cabinet meeting during the Overland Campaign, President Lincoln and his secretaries discussed the absence of news from the front lines. Welles diary entry: “Nothing came from Genl Grant who is evidently no braggadocio, and does not mean to have tidings precipitated in advance.” The detailed index offers researchers a tool to quickly locate subject matter on a myriad of topics. The book contains three additional appendices: brief biographies of each cabinet member, additional diary entries, and letters referenced in the diary. Researchers can obtain a copy of the diary in hardback or eBook
editions or visit WorldCat http:// www.worldcat.org to locate a copy in a local library. Continued good luck in researching the American Civil War! Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, author, lecturer, and instructor, who remains a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, Historians of the Civil War Western Theater, and the Georgia Association of Historians. Readers may contact him at mkscdr11@gmail.com or request speaking engagements via his website www. civilwarhistorian.net. Follow Michael on Facebook www. facebook.com/michael.k.shaffer, and Twitter @michaelkshaffer.
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Civil War News
December 2021