Gideon Welles, nicknamed "Father Neptune", was the United States Secretary of the Navy from 1861 to 1869, a cabinet post he was awarded after supporting Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election.
17 Facts About Gideon Welles
2.
Gideon Welles, the son of Samuel Welles and Ann Hale, was born on July 1,1802, in Glastonbury, Connecticut.
3.
Gideon Welles's father was a shipping merchant and fervent Jeffersonian; he was a member of the Convention, which formed the first state Connecticut Constitution in 1818 that abolished the colonial charter and officially severed the pre-American Revolution political ties to England.
4.
Gideon Welles was a member of the seventh generation of his family in America.
5.
Gideon Welles married on June 16,1835, at Lewiston, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, Mary Jane Hale, who was born on June 18,1817, in Glastonbury, Connecticut, the daughter of Elias White Hale and Jane Mullhallan.
6.
Gideon Welles died on February 28,1886, in Hartford, Connecticut, and was buried next to her husband in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford.
7.
Gideon Welles was educated at the Episcopal Academy at Cheshire, Connecticut, and earned a degree at the American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy at Norwich, Vt.
8.
Gideon Welles became a lawyer through the then-common practice of reading the law, but soon shifted to journalism and became the founder and editor of the Hartford Times in 1826.
9.
Gideon Welles was a Jacksonian Democrat who worked very closely with Martin Van Buren and John Milton Niles.
10.
Mainly because of his strong anti-slavery views, Gideon Welles shifted allegiance in 1854 to the newly established Republican Party and founded a newspaper in 1856 that would espouse Republican ideals for decades thereafter.
11.
Gideon Welles found the Naval Department in disarray, with Southern officers resigning en masse.
12.
Several weeks later, when Seward argued for a blockade of Southern ports, Gideon Welles argued vociferously against the action but was eventually overruled by Lincoln.
13.
Gideon Welles's implementation of the Naval portion of the Anaconda Plan strongly weakened the Confederacy's ability to finance the war by limiting the cotton trade, and while never completely effective in sealing off all 3,500 miles of Southern coastline, it was a major contribution towards Northern victory.
14.
Gideon Welles played a prominent part in Johnson's ill-fated "Swing Around the Circle" campaign that autumn.
15.
Gideon Welles was a Third Class Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
16.
Gideon Welles was instrumental in the Navy's creation of the Medal of Honor.
17.
Gideon Welles's body was interred at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford, Connecticut.