Annotation
[1] ALS, CSmH. See Lincoln's communication to Du Pont, April 13, supra. The ``apparent inconsistency'' to which Lincoln refers indicated by Welles' communication to Du Pont on April 2, ``The exigencies of the public service are so pressing in the Gulf that the Department directs you to send all the ironclads that are in a fit condition to move, after your present attack upon Charleston, directly to New Orleans, reserving to yourself only two.'' (OR, I, XIV, 436).
John Hay delivered Welles' order of April 2, and on April 16 he wrote Nicolay from Hilton Head, South Carolina, of the reception of Lincoln's order of April 13, as follows:
``The General and the Admiral this morning received the orders from Washington, directing the continuance of operations against Charleston. The contrast was very great in the manner in which they received them. The General was absolutely delighted. . . . He said, however, that the Admiral seemed in very low spirits about it. . . . Whether the intention of the Government be to reduce Charleston now . . . or by powerful demonstration to retain a large force of the enemy here, he is equally anxious to go to work again. . . .'' (Tyler Dennett, ed., Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, pp. 60-61).
Du Pont wrote Welles on April 16 as follows:
``I am . . . painfully struck by the tenor and tone of the President's order, which seems to imply a censure, and I have to request that the Department will not hesitate to relieve me by an officer who . . . is more able to execute that service in which I have had the misfortune to fail---the capture of Charleston. . . .'' (Daniel Ammen, The Navy in the Civil War, II, 108).