Gideon Welles Quotes
The War has been waged with success, although there have been in some instances errors and misfortunes. But the heart of the nation is sounder and its hopes brighter.
Welles, Gideon. Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson. Edited by Edgar T. Welles, vol. 1, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911, p. 500.
He also repeated this quotation in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in 1951.
The phrase was picked up by the press, and then became the title to a patriotic song of World War II.
On October 31, 1803, Tripolitan forces captured the ship Philadelphia and imprisoned the whole crew. The Pasha (provincial governor) of Tripoli, Yusef Karamanli demanded that the United States not only pay a ransom for the prisoners but an annual tribute to Tripoli.
The national troops acquired a confidence … at Belmont, that did not desert them throughout the war.
The battle had little strategic value, but was very significant as the Western Union troops gained an espirit de corps and a battle tested confidence.
Adams is quoting from Cato, a play by Joseph Addison.
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. Although opposed to the Union blockade of Southern ports, he duly carried out his part of the Anaconda Plan, largely sealing off the Confederate coastline and preventing the exchange of cotton for war supplies. This is viewed as a major cause of Union victory in the Civil War, and his achievement in expanding the Navy almost tenfold was widely praised. Welles was also instrumental in the Navy's creation of the Medal of Honor.
