n
the night of the 6th of April. Until then he had not suspected that
there was doubt and bewilderment about the Powhatan at Brooklyn. One
of those dispatches which Lincoln had so hastily signed provided for
detaching the Powhatan from the Charleston expedition and sending it
safe out of harm's way to Pensacola. The commander of the ship had
before him the conflicting orders, one from the President, one from the
Secretary of the Navy. He was about to sail under the President's
orders for Pensacola; but wishing to make sure of his authority, he
had telegraphed to Washington. Gideon Welles was a pugnacious man. His
dislike for Seward was deepseated. Imagine his state of mind when it was
accidently revealed to him that Seward had gone behind his back and had
issued to naval officers orders which were contradictory to his own!
The immediate result was an interview that same night between Seward and
Welles in which, as Welles coldly admitted in after days, the Secretary
of the Navy showed "some excitement." Together they went, about
midnight, to the White House. Lincoln had some difficulty recalling the
incident of the dispatch on the 1st of April; but when he did remember,
he took the responsibility entirely upon himself, saying he had had
no purpose but to strengthen the Pickens expedition, and no thought of
weakening the expedition to Charleston. He directed Seward to telegraph
immediately cancelling the order detaching the Powhatan. Seward made a
desperate attempt to put him off, protesting, it was too late to send
a telegram that night. "But the President was imperative," writes
Secretary Welles, in describing the incident, and a dispatch was sent.

Seward then, doubtless in his agitation, did a strange thing. Instead
of telegraphing in the President's name, the dispatch which he sent read
merely, "Give up the Powhatan...Seward." When this dispatch was received
at Brooklyn, the Powhatan was already under way and had to be overtaken
by a fast tug. In the eyes of her commander, however, a personal
telegram from the Secretary of State appeared as of no weight against
the official orders of the President, and he continued his voyage to
Pensacola.

The mercurial temper of Seward comes out even in the caustic narrative
written afterwards by Welles. Evidently Seward was deeply mortified and
depressed by the incident. He remarked, says Welles, that old as he was
he had learned a lesson, and that was that he had better attend t