Gideon Welles Gideon Welles ( July 1 , 1802 – February 11 , 1878 ) was the United States Secretary of the Navy from 1861 to 1869 . His buildup of the Navy to successfully execute blockade s of Southern ports was a key component of Northern victory of the Civil War . Welles was also instrumental in the Navy ' s creation of the Medal of Honor . Early political career . Gideon Welles , the son of Samuel Welles and Ann Hale , was born on July 1 , 1802 , in Glastonbury , Connecticut . His 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 political ties to England . This constitution is also notable for having reversed the earlier Orders and provided for freedom of religion . He was a member of the seventh generation of his family in America . His original immigrant ancestor was Thomas Welles , who arrived in 1635 and was the only man in Connecticut ' s history to hold all four top offices : governor , deputy governor , treasurer , and secretary . He was also the transcriber of the Fundamental Orders . Welles was the second great grandson of Capt . Samuel Welles and Ruth ( Rice ) Welles , the daughter of Edmund Rice , a 1638 immigrant to Sudbury and founder of Marlborough , Massachusetts . He 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 . Her father , Elias , graduated from Yale College in 1794 and practiced law in Mifflin and Centre Counties , Pennsylvania . She died on February 28 , 1886 , in Hartford , Connecticut , and was buried next to her husband in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford . Gideon and Mary Jane were the parents of six children . He was educated at the Episcopal Academy at Cheshire , Connecticut , and earned a degree at the American Literary , Scientific , and Military Academy at Norwich , Vt . ( later Norwich University ) . He 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 . After successfully gaining admission , from 1827 – 1835 , he participated in the Connecticut House of Representatives as a Democrat . Following his service in the Connecticut General Assembly , he served in various posts , including State Controller of Public Accounts in 1835 , Postmaster of Hartford ( 1836 – 41 ) , and Chief of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing for the Navy ( 1846 – 49 ) . Welles was a Jacksonian Democrat who worked very closely with Martin Van Buren and John Milton Niles . His chief rival in the Connecticut Democratic Party was Isaac Toucey , whom Welles would later replace at the Navy Department . While Welles dutifully supported James K . Polk in the 1844 election , he would abandon the Democrats in 1848 to support Van Buren ' s Free Soil campaign . Mainly because of his strong anti - slavery views , Welles shifted allegiance in 1854 to the newly established Republican Party and founded a newspaper in 1856 ( the " Hartford Evening Press " ) that would espouse Republican ideals for decades thereafter . Welles ' strong support of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 made him the logical candidate from New England for Lincoln ' s cabinet , and in March 1861 , Lincoln named Welles his Secretary of the Navy . Tenure in Lincoln ' s Cabinet . Welles found the Naval Department in disarray , with Southern officers resigning en masse . His first major action was to dispatch the Navy ' s most powerful warship , the USS " Powhatan " , to relieve Fort Sumter . Unfortunately , Lincoln had simultaneously ordered the Powhatan to both Fort Sumter and Pensacola , Florida , ruining whatever chance Major Robert Anderson had of withstanding the assault . Several weeks later , when Secretary of State William H . Seward argued for a blockade of Southern ports , Welles argued vociferously against the action but was eventually overruled by Lincoln . Despite his misgivings , Welles ' efforts to rebuild the Navy and implement the blockade proved extraordinarily effective . From 76 ships and 7 , 600 sailors in 1861 , the Navy expanded almost tenfold by 1865 . His 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 . Lincoln nicknamed Welles his " Neptune . " At the start of the war , David Dixon Porter wrote Welles that " the present allowance of crews . . . is for peace establishment and is not suited at all to times of war . " On another occasion , Porter told Welles that his own vessel lacked coal and that small steamers of shallow draft were required to make the blockade effective . From Mobile to the Mississippi River , numerous inlets allowed small Confederate craft to slip through the Federal blockade . Despite his successes , Welles was never at ease in the Cabinet . His anti - English sentiments caused him to clash with Seward , and Welles ' s conservative stances led to arguments with Treasury Secretary Salmon P . Chase and War Secretary Edwin M . Stanton . Tenure in Johnson ' s Cabinet . After Lincoln ' s assassination , Welles was retained by President Andrew Johnson as Secretary of the Navy . In 1866 , Welles , along with Seward , was instrumental in launching the National Union Party as a third party alternative supportive of Johnson ' s reconciliation policies . Welles also played a prominent part in Johnson ' s ill - fated " Swing Around the Circle " campaign that fall . Although Welles admitted in his diary that he was dismayed by Johnson ' s behavior on the trip , particularly the president ' s penchant for invective and engaging directly with hecklers , Welles remained loyal to Johnson to the end , even congratulating him in 1875 when Johnson , then an ex - president , launched a comeback political bid with his election to the U . S . Senate from Tennessee . Welles ultimately left the Cabinet on March 3 , 1869 , having returned to the Democratic Party after disagreeing with Andrew Johnson ' s reconstruction policies but supporting him during his impeachment trial . Later life and death . After leaving politics , Welles returned to Connecticut and to writing , editing his journals , and authoring several books before his death , including a biography , " Lincoln and Seward " , published in 1874 . He was a Third Class Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States . While the Loyal Legion did consist predominantly of Union officers who had served in the American Civil War the Order ' s constitution provided for honorary members ( i . e . Third Class Companions ) who were civilians who had made significant contributions to the war effort . Towards the end of 1877 , his health began to wane . A streptococcal infection of the throat killed Gideon Welles at the age of seventy - five on February 12 , 1878 . The Diary of Gideon Welles . Welles ' three - volume diary , documenting his Cabinet service from 1861 – 1869 , is an invaluable archive for Civil War scholars and students of Lincoln alike , allowing readers rare insight into the complex struggles , machinations , and inter - relational strife within the President ' s War Cabinet . Although offering a unique and quite nonpareil portrayal of the immense personalities and problems facing the men who led the Union to ultimate victory , the first edition ( published in 1911 ) suffers from rewrites by Welles himself and , after his death , by his son ; the 1960 edition is drawn directly from his original manuscript . The 1911 version of his diary may be found on Google Books : Vol . I ( 1861 - March 30 , 1864 ) , Vol . II ( April 1 , 1864 - December 31 , 1866 ) , Vol . III ( January 1 , 1867 - June 6 , 1869 ) . Posthumous dedications . Two ships have been named USS " Welles " in his honor . The Dining Commons at Cheshire Academy and the Gideon Welles School in Glastonbury , Connecticut , are also named after him . Trivia . In an interview with Dick Cavett on " The Dick Cavett Show " , actor and director Orson Welles revealed , nonchalantly , that he was the great - grandson of Gideon Welles , and had known a dinner party hostess from the American Civil War era familiar with his great - grandfather Gideon . This relation has , however , become a debunked myth , and this false tale possibly originated from that particular appearance on Cavett ' s show .