1-624-535 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Gideon Welles, US Secretary of the Navy from 1861 to 1869, 1862-1867. Welles (1802-1878) oversaw a buildup in the strength of the Union Navy which enabled it to successfully enforce a blockade of the Confederacy's ports, one of the decisive factors in bringing about the Union's eventual victory in the Civil War. An engraving from volume I of The War with the South : a History of the Late Rebellion, by Robert Tomes, Benjamin G Smith, New York, Virtue & Yorston, 3 Volumes, 1862-1867.