WELLES: LINCOLN'S NAVAL HEAD
Hesseltine, William B.
Welles: Lincoln's Naval Head GIDEON WELLES: Lincoln's Navy Department, by Richard S. West, Jr. Bobbs-Merrill. $3.50. Reviewed by William B. Hesseltine WHO WERE Benjamin Stoddert, Robert Smith,...
...For many years, Welles had been the leading Jacksonian Democrat in Connecticut...
...Reviewed by William B. Hesseltine WHO WERE Benjamin Stoddert, Robert Smith, Paul Hamilton, William Jones, B. W. Crowin-shield, John Y. Mason, and John D. Long...
...He showed jealous zeal in defending the Navy against the War and State Departments, and he kept corruption out of his own department about as well as could be expected...
...As Secretary of the Navy, Welles displayed administrative talents, though a substantial portion of the credit should go to his assistant, Gustavus Vasa Fox...
...The names of peacetime Secretaries of the Navy— including such distinguished nonentities as Adolph Borie, Nathan Goff, Paul Morton, David Henshaw, William Graham, James Dobbin—are equally obscure...
...Welles was a good judge of men, and his commanders confirmed his estimates of their abilities...
...But it was Gideon Welles' capacities as a politician, journalist, and a diarist that lifted him above the other mediocrities who have been Secretaries of the Navy...
...As a reward for his services, and because Lincoln needed support from New England's Democratic elements, Welles became Secretary of the Navy...
...In fact, of the 47 men who have presided over the naval forces of the United States since 1798, only an erudite specialist in naval history could name more than three...
...The Navy was secondary in Welles' interests...
...This biography deals with him Only in his secondary role...
...The first 100 pages of Prof...
...Compared with most of the other 46 Secretaries of the Navy, the "Old Mormon Deacon" was eminently qualified for his post...
...When he joined the Republicans in 1855, he carried considerable strength into the new party...
...This was clearly a mistake, for the "Rip Van Winkle of the Navy Department" was far more interested in political than in marine affairs...
...These give an excellent picture of the man and his activities...
...But along with Frank Knox and Josephus Daniels, the intelligent layman could probably recall Gideon Welles, "Old Man of the Sea" in Lincoln's cabinet...
...West's biography deal with Welles as a skillful politician...
...His father was a Connecticut shipbuilder and shipper before Jefferson's "Dambargo" made him change his ways for a yarn factory, and while Polk was President, Welles was Chief of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing in the Navy Department...
...His biographer has done an adequate job in portraying Welles in his secondary role...
...Unfortunately, when Welles entered Lincoln's cabinet, the author shifts his ground to write of Father Gideon as director of naval warfare...
...All three of these were newspaper men before they deserted the pen for Neptune's trident, but Welles— who is chiefly famous for his bulky, detailed, partisan, and misleading Diary—knew the difference between a row boat and a copy desk before he entered office...
...It was not this extensive maritime experience, however, that put him in Lincoln's cabinet: it was his political position in New England...
...His voluminous diary, which, despite its faults is the most valuable single document on Lincoln's and Johnson's Administrations, is concerned primarily with political matters...
...he had been postmaster at Hartford, and he had dispensed the party patronage in his state...
...He had organized the Democratic Party in the home of the wooden nutmegs, he had edited, with much vigor and some venom, the Hartford Times...
...His greatest merit was his support of iron-clad ships...
...The answer, gentle reader, to this $64 question is that these were the Secretaries of the Navy during the French Naval War, the Tripolitan War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American War...
Vol. 8 • January 1944 • No. 3
