Four days later, Seward and his son Frederick called on the navy secretary late at
night with a telegram from Meigs and Porter asking for clarification of orders regarding
the Powhatan, since confusion reigned at the Brooklyn navy yard. Seward demanded that
Welles retract his order assigning that warship to Fox.
Puzzled, Welles insisted that they consult the president immediately, even though the hour was late. En route to the White House, Seward "remarked that, old as he was, he had learned a lesson from this affair,and that was, he had better attend to his own business and confine his labors to his own Department." (In fact, the meddlesome Seward continued to poach on the domains of his cabinet colleagues, much to their annoyance.)
Around midnight they arrived at the Executive Mansion, where Lincoln was still up. Surprised by the telegram from Meigs and Porter, the president suggested that he may have misunderstood which vessel would serve as flagship for the Sumter squadron, confusing the Pocahontas with the Powhatan.(Fox's squadron consisted of the Pawnee, the Pocahontas, the Powhatan, and the Harriet Lane.) The secretary quickly retrieved documents from his office indicating that Lincoln
had authorized the assignment of the Powhatan to Fox. To set things aright, Lincoln told
Seward "that the Powhatan must be restored to Mercer – that on no account must the
Sumter expedition fail."
Seward said he "thought it was now too late to correct the mistake" and that "he considered the other project the most important, and asked whether that would not be injured if the Powhatan was now withdrawn." Lincoln "would not discuss the subject, but was peremptory – said there was not the pressing necessity in the other case . . . . As regarded Sumter, however, not a day was to be lost – that the orders of the Secretary of the Navy must be carried out." When Seward opined that it might be too late to send a telegram to New York, Lincoln "was imperative that it should be done."
Reluctantly Seward obeyed, sending Porter a telegram (which amazingly did not
arrive until 3 p.m. the next day) ordering him to do as the president had instructed.
Seward signed the message with his own name, not the president's. The frigate, which had already set sail, was overtaken and the message delivered to Porter, who refused to obey it because it bore the signature of the secretary of state, and he was operating on orders signed by the president.The headstrong Meigs approved Porter's action Whether Seward deliberately sabotaged the change in plans by signing his own name rather than the president's is not known for certain, but it seems likely.He was probably trying to thwart the Sumter expedition, which he opposed fiercely. Calling Seward "that timid traitor" who "paralizes every movement from abject fear," Fox accused him of "treachery" by "interfering with the other dep[artment]s as the last hope of preventing the reinforcing of Sumpter."Gideon Welles always believed that "to save himself," Seward "detached the Powhatan from the expedition and sent her to Pensacola."
Bringing the