The Secession Crisis Diary of Gideon Welles EDITED BY JONATHAN W. WHITE AND DANIELLE C. FORAND The diary of Gideon Welles has long been recognized as one of the best available sources for studying Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. A Connecticut newspaperman, Welles arrived in Washington in March 1861 to serve as secretary of the Navy, a position he would hold for the next eight years. Welles’s wartime and postwar diaries are so insightful that no study of the Lincoln or Johnson administrations—or of the Civil War–era Navy—could be complete without citing them. Welles began keeping an almost nightly journal of his experiences in Washington, D.C., during the summer of 1862. Many years later, his son Edgar T. Welles published excerpts from his father’s diary in Atlantic Monthly. In 1911 Edgar released a three-volume edition that he claimed included only minor revisions. “A few strong expressions, purely personal and private, have been omitted,” Edgar wrote in the preface, “but the omission has always been indicated and the reader may have full confidence that the text of the diary has been in no way mutilated or revised.”1 This assertion was patently untrue. In 1924 historian Howard K. Beale, then a graduate student at Harvard University, conducted a study of the original manuscript diary at the Library of Congress. Beale found that Edgar had sub- stantially edited and revised his father’s diary, censoring a number of passages that might have been embarrassing to his father or his father’s contemporaries. The 1911 edition also incorporated many of Gideon Welles’s revisions from the 1870s, passing them off as having been written during his time in the cabinet. Finally Edgar included a number of passages that were nowhere to be found in the original manuscripts at the Library of Congress. In 1960 Beale published a new We thank Michael Musick as well as our friends and colleagues at Christopher Newport University for assistance in transcribing several difficult words. 1. Edgar T. Welles, ed., Diary of Gideon Welles, 3 vols. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), 1:vi. Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2020 © 2020 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois 2 Welles’s Secession Crisis Diary three-volume edition of the diary, undoing “the extensive editing by the diarist himself” as well as “the further altering by the son.” The Beale edition reproduced the pages of the 1911 edition with handwrit- ten annotations marked throughout the text, indicating where the 1911 edition was untrue to what Welles had originally written in the 1860s.2 Unfortunately, Beale’s annotations can be difficult to decipher. Fortunately, in 2014 Harvard historian William E. Gienapp and his wife, Erica L. Gienapp, released The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy: The Original Manuscript Edition through the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College. Rather than work from the 1911 edition, as Beale had done, the Gienapps re-transcribed Welles’s original manuscript diaries at the Library of Congress, scrupulously omitting Welles’s later emendations. The final product was a beauti- fully produced and carefully annotated verbatim transcription of what Secretary Welles had written while he served with Lincoln. (Unlike the earlier editions, the 2014 edition concludes in April 1865.)3 All three editions of Welles’s diary include a “retrospective” in which Welles describes the period from March 6 through July 1861. The 1911 and 1960 editions present the retrospective as part of the original diary, while the Gienapps suggest that it was written some- time after Welles left office in June 1869.4 None of the published edi- tions include anything earlier; however, Welles kept other diaries dur- ing his lifetime. The Huntington Library, in San Marino, California, holds a sizable collection (approximately 600 pieces in ten boxes) of Welles’s papers. Included among these papers are diaries for the years 1846–1849, as well as a small pocket diary with an entry for each day in January and February 1861.5 Never before published, this pocket diary offers an invaluable portrait of Welles’s reactions to the secession crisis, his criticisms of the Buchanan administration, and his views of Abraham Lincoln as president-elect. This article reproduces Welles’s 1861 pocket diary in its entirety. In attempting to transcribe his handwriting, we have rendered words as accurately as we could; we chose, however, to silently correct Welles’s spelling in a few cases. In a number of instances it is clear what word he intended, though some letters are nearly impossible to decipher. 2. Howard K. Beale, ed., Diary of Gideon Welles: Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and Johnson, 3 vols. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1960). 3. William E. Gienapp and Erica L. Gienapp, eds., The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy: The Original Manuscript Edition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014). 4. Gideon Welles, “Retrospective, March 6, 1861–July 1862,” in ibid., 639–83. 5. Gideon Welles Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. White and Forand 3 This problem is compounded by the fact that he sometimes omitted letters from words, such as “the” without an “e,” or “Lincoln” with- out a “c,” or “friend” without an “i.” In these sorts of instances we thought it best for the sake of readability to silently correct Welles’s mistakes. Welles often omitted periods when he ran out of room in a line on the edge of the page. In these instances we have silently inserted the correct punctuation. Finally, in one instance we silently deleted the repeated word “the.” Words that could not be definitively deciphered are marked as illegible and possible renderings are offered in a footnote. Tuesday, January 1, 1861 A pleasant morning and pleasant day. Thermometer this a.m. at 8—30°. Wrote G. D. Morgan6 and G. G. Fogg,7 that I had faith the country would be extricated from this peril of secession by a good God and the good sense of the people, notwithstanding the imbecility, infidelity and treachery of men to whom public affairs have been intrusted. The country is in a strange condition. Treason, under the name of secession, is openly at work, and the President is receiving and treating with the conspirators, and his sympathies are evidently with them. Recd a letter from Truman Smith8 hoping I should have a place in the Cabinet—from Fogg to the same effect. Wednesday, January 2, 1861 Beautiful sunny day. A little unwell, but was at Bank this noon. Money matters a little less stringent. President Perkins9 not pres- ent to preside at the board, having fallen on the ice yesterday while skating and injured his side. Think the country, and the money institutions, and business interests are recovering, and getting into strong position, from the causeless assault made by partisans & sectionalists expressly to make difficulty and embar- rassment. 6. George D. Morgan (1818–1891) was a New York City merchant whom Welles would soon hire to procure ships for the Union Navy. Morgan was married to Welles’s wife’s sister, Caroline. 7. George Gilman Fogg (1813–1881) was secretary of the Republican National Execu- tive Committee in 1860, minister to Switzerland under Lincoln, and U.S. senator from New Hampshire after the war. 8. Truman Smith (1791–1884) served several terms in Congress as a Whig from Connecticut between 1830 and 1854. In 1862 Lincoln appointed him a judge under the treaty with England for the suppression of the slave trade. 9. Henry A. Perkins (1801–1874) was president of the Hartford Bank. 4 Welles’s Secession Crisis Diary Thursday, January 3, 1861 Had a sleepless, restless painful night. Dr Taft10 called and left medicine. Violent head-ache during most of the day. Edgar11 left for New Haven this a.m. at 8. Commencement of Winter term. Tom12 began school yesterday at High school— John13 to day at the south Distt. Vacation for each having closed. Had letter from Senator Foster,14 desiring me to write Scey Toucey15 to do his duty, in, this crisis. Quite a fall of snow last night and to day. Friday, January 4, 1861 National Fast. Service to day in most of the churches.16 The President had specified this day for fasting and prayer in consequence of our sins & calamities. Wretched man! Most of our public troubles are to be attributed to his weakness and wilful perversity. From the day of his election he seems to have considered himself not the Chief Magistrate of the whole Country, but the selected leader of an illiberal and presumptive party. Find myself better; but do not venture abroad. Had a call from Mark Howard17 and E. S. Cleveland,18 with letters from Senator Dixon19 & others that I am to be tendered a 10. Cincinnatus A. Taft (1822–1884) was a homeopathic physician in Hartford. 11. Edgar T. Welles (1843–1914), a son of Gideon Welles, was a student at Yale College. He later became the chief clerk of the Navy Department from 1866 to 1869. 12. Thomas G. Welles (1846–1892), a son of Gideon Welles. After attending the Naval Academy in 1862 he became a commissioned officer in the army. See Hartford Daily Courant, March 21, 1892. 13. John A. Welles (1849–1885), youngest son of Gideon Welles to reach adulthood, served for many years as a teller at the state bank. See Hartford Daily Courant, Novem- ber 9, 1885. 14. Lafayette Sabine Foster (1806–1880), a Republican, served as U.S.