2-832-321 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

This cabinet card depicts Gideon Welles on a Mathew Brady mount. Welles (1802-1878) was the United States Secretary of the Navy from 1861 to 1869. Although opposed to the Union blockade of Southern ports, he 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 American Civil War. Shown from the waist up, he wears a black frock coat and waistcoat over a white shirt. A pocket watch chain T-bar is visible in one buttonhole. There is text at the bottom left corner of the card mount that reads "Brady, Photo, New York." The reverse of the card mount has text that reads "Imperial Carte de Visite, / by/ BRADY/ NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY/ No. 785 Broadway, / New York, / 627 Pennsylvania Avenue, / Washington, / D. C."