"The hopeless grief of those poor colored people affected me more than almost anything else"

Gideon Welles’s words capture a rare glimpse into the profound human suffering endured by enslaved and formerly enslaved people during a time of upheaval and transformation in America. Using the phrase “hopeless grief,” Welles does not refer to a simple or passing sadness, but rather a deep, pervasive anguish experienced by “those poor colored people.” The specificity of “hopeless” highlights the overwhelming, paralyzing despair that stripped individuals of any confidence that circumstances could improve, the kind of grief born out of lifetimes spent under oppression, brutality, and loss.

Welles’s reaction, he is more deeply affected by their sorrow than “almost anything else”, reveals not only his personal empathy, but also how the raw suffering of Black Americans could pierce through the political maneuvering and ideologies that so often dominated discourse around emancipation and the Civil War. For Welles, who served as Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy and was confronted daily with policy debates and logistical concerns, this moment of emotional candor indicates that witnessing the lived experience of Black people shattered abstractions or distance, leaving a lasting impression stronger than battles or strategy.

The choice to describe these people as “poor” is significant too, evoking both economic deprivation and a kind of dignity in adversity, while implicitly acknowledging a shared humanity. At a time when racial prejudice was normalized, Welles’s expression of empathy becomes doubly significant; it hints at an undercurrent of conscience rippling even among those in positions of power. By stating how deeply he was moved, Welles underscores the injustice and long-term trauma inflicted by slavery and its aftermath, reinforcing the notion that emancipation and reconstruction were about more than politics or economics, they were fundamentally struggles for the reclamation of hope, dignity, and the right to mourn. The suffering he observed stands as a testament to the real human cost of oppression and the urgent moral imperative for change.