Detail of Gideon Welles, glass negative, ca. 1855-65 – Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Brady-Handy Collection
Gideon Welles (1802-1878)
Born in Glastonbury in 1802, Gideon Welles is known best for his work in organizing and expanding the US navy during the Lincoln Administration. After working in the Connecticut legislature from 1827 until 1835, and as Hartford’s postmaster shortly after, he received an appointment as chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Provisions and Clothing in 1846. His strong anti-slavery views convinced him to join the newly formed Republican Party and helped earn him an appointment as Secretary of the Navy under Abraham Lincoln. Welles, whom Lincoln called “My Neptune,” rapidly doubled the size of the US navy during his tenure and successfully directed the Union’s naval campaigns during the Civil War.
Featured
Gideon Welles, US Secretary of the Navy and Lincoln’s “Neptune”
Gideon Welles was the Secretary of the United States Navy from 1861 to 1869 and a cabinet member during the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. …[more]
Learn More
“The Abraham Lincoln Papers - Collins Brothers & Company to Gideon Welles, Thursday, August 25, 1864.” 1864. https://www.loc.gov/item/mal3555200/ (March 13, 2013).
“A Guide to the Gideon Welles Papers.” 2017. Connecticut Historical Society.
“Gideon Welles Collection.” Connecticut Digital Archive. https://ctdigitalarchive.org/islandora/search/mods_titleInfo_title_mt%3A%28Gideon%5C%20Welles%29%20OR%20mods_subject_name_personal_namePart_mt%3A%28Gideon%5C%20Welles%29.
“Finding Aid to the Gideon Welles Papers, 1777-1911.” 2017. Library of Congress. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms003053.
“Gideon Welles (1802 – 1878).” 2017. Cedar Hill Cemetery Foundation. http://cedarhillfoundation.org/notable-residents/gideon-welles/ (March 13, 2013).
“The Historical Society of Glastonbury.” 2016. http://www.hsgct.org.
Spencer, J. Ronald, ed. 2014. A Connecticut Yankee in Lincoln’s Cabinet: Navy Secretary Gideon Welles Chronicles the Civil War. Hartford, CT: The Acorn Club.
Welles, Gideon, and Edgar Thaddeus Welles. 1911. Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson. Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. http://archive.org/stream/diaryofgideonwelv1well#page/n7/mode/2up.
Niven, John. 1973. Gideon Welles; Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy. New York: Oxford University Press.
West, Richard S. 1943. Gideon Welles: Lincoln’s Navy Department. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.
