I
DRIFT TOWARD SOUTHERN NATIONALIZATION (1850–1860)
Seventy-two years after the adoption of the Constitution, called into being to form “a more perfect union,” and eighty-five years after the declaration of independence (a space completely covered by the lives of men still living), a new confederacy of seven Southern states was formed, and the great political fabric, the exemplar and hope of every lover of freedom throughout the world, was apparently hopelessly rent. Of these seven states but two were of the original thirteen—Louisiana and Florida had been purchased by the government of the union; a war had been fought in behalf of Texas; two states, Alabama and Mississippi, lay within original claims of Georgia, but had been ceded to the union and organized as Federal territories.
April 11, 1861, found a fully organized separate government established for these seven states, with a determination to form a separate nation, most forcibly expressed by the presence of an army at Charleston, South Carolina, which next day was to open fire upon a feebly manned fort, and thus to begin a terrible civil war. The eight other slave states were in a turmoil of anxiety, leaning toward their sisters of the farther South through the common sympathy which came of slavery, but drawn also to the union through tradition and233 appreciation of benefits, and through a realization by a great number of persons that their interests in slavery were much less than those of the states which had already seceded.
The North, in the middle of April, was only emerging from a condition of stupefied amazement at a condition which scarcely any of its statesmen, and practically none of the men of every-day life, had thought possible. It was to this crisis that the country had been brought by the conflicting views of the two great and strongly divided sections of the union respecting slavery, and by the national aspirations which, however little recognized, were working surely in each section, but upon divergent lines.
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The outward manifestations in the history of the separation of the North and the South stand out in strong relief: the Missouri question; the protective tariff and South Carolina nullification; the abolition attacks which wrought the South into a frenzy suicidal in character through its impossible demands upon the North for protection; the action of the Southern statesmen in the question of petitions; the passage of a fugitive-slave law which drove the North itself to nullification; the Kansas-Nebraska act and its outcome of civil war in the former territory; the recognition, in the dicta of the supreme court in the Dred Scott case, of the South’s contention of its constitutional right to carry slavery into the territories, and the stand taken by the North against any further slavery extension. To these visible conflicts were added the unconscious workings of the disruptive forces of a totally distinct social organization. The outward strifes were but the symptoms of a malady in the body politic of the union which could have but one end, unless the deep, abiding cause, slavery, should be removed.135
234 The president and vice-president of the Southern Confederacy, in their elaborate defences written after the war, have endeavored to rest the cause of the struggle wholly on constitutional questions. Stephens, whose book, not even excepting Calhoun’s utterances, is the ablest exposition of the Southern reading of the Constitution, says: “The struggle or conflict, ... from its rise to its culmination, was between those who, in whatever state they lived, were for maintaining our Federal system as it was established, and those who were for a consolidation of power in the central head.”136 Jefferson Davis is even more explicit. “The truth remains,” he says, “intact and incontrovertible, that the existence of African servitude was in no wise the cause of the conflict, but only an incident. In the later controversies ... its effect in operating as a lever upon the passions, prejudices, or sympathies of mankind was so potent that it has been spread like a thick cloud over the whole horizon of historic truth.”137
This is but begging the question. The constitutional view had its weight for the South in 1860 as it had for New England in the Jefferson-Madison period. Jefferson’s iron domination of the national government during his presidency, a policy hateful to New England, combined with the fear of being overweighted in sectional influence by the western extension through the Louisiana purchase, led to pronounced threats of secession by men of New England, ardently desirous of escaping from what Pickering, one of its most prominent men, termed the Virginian supremacy.138 Exactly the same arguments were used, mutatis mutandis, later by the South.
As we all know, the movement, which never had any real popular support and which had its last spasm of life in the Hartford Convention at the close of the War of235 1812, came to naught. Freed by the fall of Napoleon and the peace with England from the pressure of the upper and nether mill-stones which had so ground to pieces our commerce, a prosperity set in which drowned the sporadic discontent of the previous twenty years. The fears of the Eastern states no longer loomed so high and were as imaginary in fact, and had as slight a basis, as were, in the beginning of the era of discord, those of the South. Could slavery have been otherwise preserved, the extreme decentralizing ideas of the South would have disappeared with equal ease, and Stephens’ causa causans—“the different and directly opposite views as to the nature of the government of the United States, and where, under our system, ultimate sovereign power or paramount authority properly resides,” would have had no more intensity of meaning in 1860 than to-day.
Divergence of constitutional views, like most questions of government, follow the lines of self-interest; Jefferson’s qualms gave way before the great prize of Louisiana; one part of the South was ready in 1832 to go to war on account of a protective tariff; another, Louisiana, was at the same time demanding protection for her special industry. The South thus simply shared in our general human nature, and fought, not for a pure abstraction, as Davis and Stephens, led by Calhoun, would have it, but for the supposed self-interest which its view of the Constitution protected. Its section, its society, could not continue to develop in the union under the Northern reading of the document, and the irrepressible and certain nationalization, so different from its own tendencies, to which the North as a whole was steadily moving.
Slavery drove the South into opposition to the broad, liberal movement of the age. The French Revolution; the destruction of feudalism by Napoleon; the later popular movements throughout Europe and South America; the liberalizing of Great Britain; the nationalistic ideas of which we have the results in the236 German empire and the kingdom of Italy, and the strong nationalistic feeling developing in the northern part of the union itself had but little reflex action in the South because of slavery and the South’s consequent segregation and tendency to a feudalistic nationalization.
II
STATUS OF THE FORTS (OCT. 29, 1860–DEC. 20, 1860)
General Scott, with his memories of 1832, was one of those who appreciated the danger hanging over the country, and, October 29, 1860, he wrote from New York, where he had his headquarters, a letter of great length to the President, which in pompous phrases, conceding the right of secession, and embodying some absurd ideas, such as allowing “the fragments of the great republic to form themselves into new confederacies, probably four,” as a smaller evil than war, gave it as his “solemn conviction” that there was, from his knowledge of the Southern population, “some danger of an early act of rashness preliminary to secession, viz.: the seizure of some or all of the following posts: Forts Jackson and St. Philip on the Mississippi; Morgan below Mobile, all without garrisons; Pickens, McKee at Pensacola, with an insufficient garrison for one; Pulaski, below Savannah, without a garrison; Moultrie and Sumter, Charleston harbor, the former with an insufficient garrison, the latter without any; and Fort Monroe, Hampton Roads, with an insufficient garrison.”
He gave it as his opinion that “all these works should be immediately so garrisoned as to make any attempt to take any one of them by surprise or coup de main ridiculous.” He did not state the number of men needed, but in a supplementary paper the next day (October 30th) said, “There is one (regular) company in Boston, one here (at the Narrows), one at Pittsburg, one at Baton237 Rouge—in all, five companies only within reach.”139 These five companies, about two hundred and fifty men, were of course absurdly inadequate to garrison nine such posts, but, had there been a determination in the President’s mind to prevent seizures, enough men could have been brought together to hold the more important points.
For Scott’s statement as to the number available was grossly inaccurate, and but serves to show the parlous state of a war department in which the general-in-chief can either be so misinformed or allow himself to remain in ignorance of vital facts. There were but five points in the farther South of primal importance: the Mississippi, Mobile, Pensacola, Savannah, and Charleston; two hundred men at each would have been ample to hold the positions for the time being, and, being held, reinforcement in any degree would later have been easy. There was a total of 1048 officers and men at the Northern posts,140 including Leavenworth, Mackinac, Plattsburg, Boston, New York, and Fort Monroe, who could have been drawn upon. There were already 250 men at Charleston, Key West, Pensacola, and Baton Rouge. It is safe to say that a thousand men were available. There were also some eight hundred marines at the navy-yards and barracks141 who could have been used in such an emergency. The aggregate of the army, June 30, 1860, was 16,006, of which 14,926 were enlisted men; and it was in the power of the President to increase this total aggregate to 18,626.142 Recruiting was, in fact, actively going on; almost every man at the posts mentioned could, even much after the date of Scott’s paper, have been safely withdrawn for the object mentioned and quickly replaced.
238 Scott’s inaccurate report gave Buchanan additional reason for the inaction which was his basic thought. He says, in his apologia, that “to have attempted to distribute these five companies in the eight forts of the cotton states and Fortress Monroe in Virginia, would have been a confession of weakness.... It could have had no effect in preventing secession, but must have done much to provoke it.”143 The first part of this statement would have been true had these five companies been the only force available; the second, on the supposition that the President meant that any attempt with a force reasonably large would have provoked secession, was a short-sighted view. To garrison the forts could not have been more obnoxious than to put them in a state of defence. At any time before the secession of a state they could have been garrisoned without bringing on actual conflict. The statesmen of the South were well aware that an attack upon an armed force of the United States, before secession, must place them irretrievably in the wrong. South Carolina did not secede until December 20th. To resist the sending of troops before this date to any of these forts would have been unqualified treason, and for this no one in the South was prepared. The safety of the secession movement, the extension of sympathy throughout the South, rested very greatly upon strict compliance with the forms of law and with the theories of the Constitution held by that section. At least one ardent secessionist, Judge Longstreet, recognized this when he appealed to South-Carolinians to refrain from any act of war; “let the first shot,” he said, “come from the enemy. Burn that precept into your hearts.”144 It was impossible that the Southern leaders should place themselves, or allow their people to place them, in the attitude of waging war against the union while even in their own view their states still239 remained within it. There was, too, still a very large union sentiment in the South, though finally swept into the vortex by the principle of going with the state, which would not have been averse to a determined action on the part of the President and might have upheld it, as in 1833. Such vigor would have given this sentiment a working basis, through the evidence that the Federal authority was to be upheld; and it would have caused a pause even in the least thoughtful of the secessionists had they felt that their coast strongholds were to be held and all their ports to be in the hands of the enemy. In the dearth of manufactures in the South, the holding of their ports was an essential to Southern military success. Their closure by blockade was equally an essential to the success of the North. The strategy of the situation was of the clearest and most palpable, and with their coast forts in union hands warlike action on the part of the South is not conceivable. One can thus understand the importance of spreading the reiterated statements of “intense excitement” and “danger of attack” in the event of reinforcement; statements which, in the circumstances, must be regarded, if the phrase may be used, in the nature of a gigantic and successful “bluff.”
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The military property of the United States at Charleston consisted of the armory, covering a few acres, where were stored twenty-two thousand muskets and a considerable number of old, heavy guns, and of three forts named for South-Carolinians of union-wide fame. The smallest of these, Castle Pinckney, was a round, brick structure, in excellent condition, on a small island directly east of the town and distant from the wharves but half a mile. It completely commanded the town, and had a formidable armament of four forty-two-pounders, fourteen twenty-four-pounders, and four eight-inch sea-coast howitzers. The powder of the arsenal was here stored. The only garrison was an ordnance sergeant,240 who, with his family, looked after the harbor light which was in the fort.
Almost due east again, and three miles distant, was Fort Moultrie, on the south end of Sullivan’s Island, a low sand-spit forming the north side of the harbor entrance. The work had an area of one and a half acres, and mounted fifty-five guns in barbette. The drifting sands had piled themselves even with the parapet, and the work was in such condition as to be indefensible against a land attack. The whole was but of a piece with the long-continued neglect arising from many years of peace and the optimistic temperament of a people who never believe that war can occur until it is upon them; it was the natural outcome of the almost entire absence of governmental system and forethought of the time. The fort was garrisoned by two companies, comprising sixty-four enlisted men and eight officers, of the First regiment of artillery; the surgeon, band, a hospital steward, and an ordnance sergeant brought the total up to eighty-four.
Almost south of Moultrie was Cummings Point, on Morris Island, forming the southern side of the harbor entrance. Nearly midway between this point and Moultrie, but a half-mile within the line joining them, and distant three and a half miles from the nearest part of the city, was Fort Sumter, begun in 1829, and after thirty-one years not yet finished. Built on a shoal covered at most stages of the tide, it rose directly out of the water, with two tiers of casemates, and surmounted by a third tier of guns in barbette. In plan it was very like the transverse section of the ordinary American house, the apex of the two sides representing the lines of the roof, looking toward Moultrie. It was intended for a garrison of six hundred and fifty men and an armament of one hundred and forty-six guns, of which seventy-eight were on hand.
On a report made in July by Captain J. G. Foster, repairs241 on Moultrie were begun September 14th, and next day upon Sumter, some two hundred and fifty men being employed. The sand about the walls of Moultrie was removed, a wet ditch dug, a glacis formed, the guardhouse pierced with loop-holes, and the four field-guns placed in position for flank attack.
At the end of October, Captain Foster, foreseeing events, requested the issue of arms to the workmen to protect property, and the Secretary of War approved the issue of forty muskets, if it should meet the concurrence of the commanding officer. Colonel Gardner, in reply, November 5th, doubted the expediency, as most of the laborers were foreigners, indifferent to which side they took, and wisely advised, instead, filling up “at once” the two companies at Moultrie with recruits and sending two companies from Fort Monroe to the two other forts.145 The requisition was thus held in abeyance, and the muskets remained at the arsenal. When, only two days later, Gardner, urged by the repeated solicitations of his officers, directed the transfer of musket ammunition to Moultrie, the loading of the schooner was objected to by the owner of the wharf, and the military store-keeper, under apparently very inadequate pressure, returned the stores to the arsenal. A permit, given by the mayor of Charleston next day, for the removal was very properly declined by Gardner, on the ground that the city authorities could not control his actions.146
The affair, however, cost Gardner his command, by a process described by the Assistant Secretary of State, Trescot: “I received a telegram from Charleston, saying that intense excitement prevailed, ... and that, if the removal was by orders of the Department of War, it ought to be revoked, otherwise collision was inevitable. Knowing the Cabinet were then in session, I went over to the White House.... I took Governor Floyd aside, and he was242 joined, I think, by Messrs. Cobb and Toucey, and showed them the telegram. Governor Floyd replied, ‘Telegraph back at once; say that you have seen me, that no such orders have been issued, and none such will be issued, under any circumstances.’” Floyd, a day or so later, gave Trescot “his impressions of the folly of Colonel Gardner’s conduct, and his final determination to remove him and supply his place with Major Robert Anderson, in whose discretion, coolness, and judgment he put great confidence. He also determined to send Colonel Ben. Huger to take charge of the arsenal, believing that his high reputation, his close association with many of the most influential people in Charleston, and the fact of his being a Carolinian, would satisfy the state of the intention of the government.”147
That Floyd himself was in an uncertain state of mind is shown by his willingness to begin and continue the work upon the forts; that his mental state did not permit logical action is clear from his temper and attitude regarding the transfer of musket ammunition November 7th, though but the week before (October 31st) he had authorized the transfer of the muskets themselves.
Major Fitz-John Porter, of the adjutant-general’s office, later the able and ill-treated general, was sent to Charleston to inspect the conditions. His report, made November 11th, revealed the military inefficiency almost inseparable from a post so neglected and ill-manned, and subject to the lazy peace conditions of the period. He said: “The unguarded state of the fort invites attack, if such design exists, and much discretion and prudence are required on the part of the commander to restore the proper security without exciting a community prompt to misconstrue actions of authority. I think this can be effected by a proper commander without checking in the slightest the progress of the engineer in completing the243 works of defence.” Major Porter continues with a most significant phrase, “All could have been easily arranged a few weeks since, when the danger was foreseen by the present commander.”148
November 15th, Anderson was ordered to the command. A Kentuckian by birth, his wife a Georgian, his views in sympathy with those of General Scott, he appeared to be and, as results proved, was in many respects particularly fitted for the post; by November 23d he was able to report that in two weeks the outer defences of Moultrie would be finished and the guns mounted, and that Sumter was ready for the comfortable accommodation of one company, and, indeed, for the temporary reception of its proper garrison. “This,” he said, “is the key to the entrance to this harbor; its guns command this work [Moultrie] and could drive out its occupants. It should be garrisoned at once.... So important do I consider the holding of Castle Pinckney by the government that I recommend, if the troops asked for cannot be sent at once, that I be authorized to place an engineer detachment [of an officer and thirty workmen] ... to make the repairs needed there.... If my force was not so very small, I would not hesitate to send a detachment at once to garrison that work. Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney must be garrisoned immediately if the government determines to keep command of this harbor.”
Anderson proceeded to give advice which sane judgment and every sentiment of national honor demanded. After mentioning his anxiety to avoid collision with the citizens of South Carolina, he said: “Nothing, however, will be better calculated to prevent bloodshed than our being found in such an attitude that it would be madness and folly to attack us. There is not so much feverish excitement as there was last week, but that there is a settled determination to leave the union, and obtain244 possession of this work, is apparent to all.... The clouds are threatening, and the storm may break upon us at any moment. I do, then, most earnestly entreat that a reinforcement be immediately sent to this garrison, and that at least two companies be sent at the same time to Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney.” Anderson also stated his belief that as soon as the people of South Carolina learned that he had demanded reinforcements they would occupy Pinckney and attack Moultrie; and therefore it was vitally important to embark the troops in war steamers and designate them for other duty as a blind.149 Captain Foster, November 24th, reported the whole of the barbette tier of Sumter ready for its armament and as presenting an excellent appearance of preparation and strength equal to seventy per cent. of its efficiency when finished.150 He said, November 30th, “I think more troops should have been sent here to guard the forts, and I believe that no serious demonstration on the part of the populace would have met such a course.”151
The work on the forts was, of course, well known to the people of Charleston, and that at Moultrie, at least, subject to daily inspection by many visitors. There was still no restriction “upon any intercourse with Charleston, many of whose citizens were temporary residents of Sullivan’s Island. The activity about the fort drew to it a large number of visitors daily, and the position of the garrison and the probable action of the state in regard to the forts were constant subjects of discussion. There was as yet no unfriendly feeling manifested, and the social intercourse between the garrison and their friends in Charleston was uninterrupted. But as the days went on the feeling assumed a more definite shape, and found expression in many ways.... It was openly announced, both to the commanding officer and to his officers, that as soon as the state seceded a demand for245 the delivery of the forts would be made, and, if resisted, they would be taken.... Meantime, all of the able-bodied men in Charleston were enrolled, military companies were formed everywhere, and drilling went on by night and day, and with the impression among them that they were to attack Fort Moultrie.”152 November 28th and December 1st, Anderson again pressed for troops or for ships of war in the harbor;153 but his last request was anticipated in a letter of the same date, when he was informed by the War Department, “from information thought to be reliable, that an attack will not be made on your command, and the Secretary has only to refer to his conversation with you and to caution you that, should his convictions unhappily prove untrue, your actions must be such as to be free from the charge of initiating a collision. If attacked, you are of course expected to defend the trust committed to you to the best of your ability.”154
A demand being made by the adjutant of a South Carolina regiment on the engineer officer at Moultrie for a list of his workmen, “as it was desired to enroll the men upon them for military duty,”155 Anderson asked for instructions. The War Department replied, December 14th, “If the state authorities demand any of Captain Foster’s workmen on the ground of their being enrolled into the service of the state, ... you will, after fully satisfying yourself that the men are subject to enrolment, and have been properly enrolled, ... cause them to be delivered up or suffer them to depart.” Banality could go no further, and Anderson, December 18th, informed the department that, as he understood it, “the South Carolina authorities sought to enroll as a part of their army intended to act against the forces of the United States men who are employed by and in the pay of that government, and246 could not, as I conceived, be enrolled by South Carolina ‘under the laws of the United States and of the state of South Carolina.’” No answer was vouchsafed to this, and the request was not complied with.
Anderson’s repeated statements of the necessity of the occupancy of Sumter, without which his own position was untenable, led to the despatch of Major Buell, a Kentuckian, and later a major-general of United States volunteers, with verbal instructions, which, however, on Buell’s own motion, and with the thought that Anderson should have written evidence, were reduced, December 11th, to writing. This memorandum is of such importance that it must be given in full.
“You are aware of the great anxiety of the Secretary of War that a collision of the troops with the people of this state shall be avoided, and of his studied determination to pursue a course with reference to the military force and forts in this harbor which shall guard against such a collision. He has therefore carefully abstained from increasing the force at this point, or taking any measures which might add to the present excited state of the public mind, or which would throw any doubt on the confidence he feels that South Carolina will not attempt, by violence, to obtain possession of the public works or interfere with their occupancy. But as the counsels and acts of rash and impulsive persons may possibly disappoint those expectations of the government, he deems it proper that you should be prepared with instructions to meet so unhappy a contingency. He has therefore directed me verbally to give you such instructions. You are carefully to avoid every act which would needlessly tend to provoke aggression; and for that reason you are not without evident and imminent necessity to take up any position which could be construed in the assumption of a hostile attitude. But you are to hold possession of the forts in the harbor, and if attacked you are to defend yourself to the last247 extremity. The smallness of your force will not permit you, perhaps, to occupy more than one of the three forts, but an attack on, or attempt to take possession of, any one of them will be regarded as an act of hostility, and you may then put your command into either of them which you may deem most proper to increase its power of resistance. You are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act.”156
These instructions did not come to the President’s knowledge until December 21st, though a despatch from Washington, December 13th, published in the Charleston Courier, announced Major Buell’s visit; when made known to the President, he directed them to be modified, ordering that if “attacked by a force so superior that resistance would, in your judgment, be a useless waste of life, it will be your duty to yield to necessity and make the best terms in your power.”157
December 3d, Anderson placed Lieutenant Jefferson C. Davis with thirty men in Castle Pinckney, and began work there. Action upon a request for arms for the workmen at Sumter and Pinckney was deferred by the War Department “for the present,” but Captain Foster going to the arsenal, December 17th, for two gins for hoisting, “to the transmission of which there was no objection,” arranged with the store-keeper that the old order of the Ordnance Department of November 1st, for forty muskets, should be complied with, which was done. “Intense excitement” as usual was reported the next day to have occurred; there was the reiteration of great danger of “violent demonstration” from a military official of the state who called upon Foster, and who stated that Colonel Huger had informed the governor that no arms should be removed. Foster declined to return the arms, stating that he knew nothing of Huger’s pledge, but was248 willing to refer the matter to Washington. Trescot was informed by telegraph that “not a moment’s time should be lost.” The Secretary of War was aroused in the depths of the night, and the result was a telegraphic order from Floyd himself to “return [the arms] instantly.”158 The go-between Assistant Secretary of State, so busily engaged with affairs not his own, received from the aide-de-camp of Governor Pickens the telegram: “The Governor says he is glad of your despatch, for otherwise there would have been imminent danger. Earnestly urge that there be no transfer of troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter and inform Secretary of War.”159 Captain Foster, explaining to the War Department, December 20, 1860, says, “when in town to see General Schnierle and allay any excitement relative to the muskets, I found to my surprise that there was no excitement except with a very few who had been active in the matter, and the majority of the gentlemen whom I met had not even heard of it.”160
Pickens, the new governor of South Carolina, December 17th, the day after his inauguration, and before the state had passed the ordinance of secession, made a demand on the President for the delivery of Fort Sumter. The letter, drawn in the most offensive terms, and marked “strictly confidential,” urged that all work be stopped and that no more troops be ordered. It continued: “It is not improbable that, under orders from the commandant, or, perhaps, from the commander-in-chief of the army, the alteration and defences of the posts are progressing without the knowledge of yourself or the Secretary of War. The arsenal in the city of Charleston, with the public arms, I am informed, was turned over very properly to the keeping and defence of the state force at249 the urgent request of the Governor of South Carolina. I would most respectfully, and from a sincere devotion to the public peace, request that you would allow me to send a small force, not exceeding twenty-five men and an officer, to take possession of Fort Sumter immediately, in order to give a feeling of safety to the community.”161
The ever-ready Trescot arranged an interview December 20th with the President for the delivery of the letter. The President stated that he would give an answer the next day. In the mean time Trescot, seeing the difficulties to which it led, consulted both Senators Davis and Slidell, who thought the demand “could do nothing but mischief”; and on consultation with two of the South Carolina delegation in Washington, Governor Pickens was advised by telegraph to withdraw the letter, which was done. Trescot’s letter to Governor Pickens, returning that of the latter, after mentioning all that had been done by the executive to refrain from injuring the sensibilities of South Carolina, said: The President’s “course had been violently denounced by the Northern press, and an effort was being made to institute a Congressional investigation. At that moment he could not have gone to the extent of action you desired, and I felt confident that, if forced to answer your letter then, he would have taken such ground as would have prevented his even approaching it hereafter; ... you had all the advantage of knowing the truth, without the disadvantage of having it put on record.... I was also perfectly satisfied that the status of the garrison would not be disturbed.... I have had this morning an interview with Governor Floyd, the Secretary of War; ... while I cannot even here venture into details, which are too confidential to be risked in any way, I am prepared to say ... that nothing will be done which will either do you injury or properly create alarm.”162
250 The President’s painful weakness is but too clear in the fact that he had not only given his confidence so largely to such a man, whose position and attitude he knew, but saw nothing derogatory in such a letter as that of Governor Pickens, and could draft a reply (December 20th) in which, while stating that no authority had been given to Governor Gist to guard the Charleston arsenal, he said: “I deeply regret to observe that you seem entirely to have misapprehended my position, which I supposed had been clearly stated in my message. I have incurred, and shall incur, any reasonable risk ... to prevent a collision.... Hence I have declined for the present to reinforce these forts, relying upon the honor of the South-Carolinians that they will not be assaulted whilst they remain in their present condition; but that commissioners will be sent by the convention to treat with Congress on the subject.”163
December 18th the President sent Caleb Cushing with a letter to Governor Pickens, with the idea of inducing the authorities and people of South Carolina to await the action of Congress and the development of opinion in the North as to the recommendation of his message. Governor Pickens told Cushing, December 20th, the day of the passage of the ordinance of secession, that he would make no reply to the letter, and stated “very candidly that there was no hope for the union, and that, as far as he was concerned, he intended to maintain the separate independence of South Carolina.”164
III
THE FORT SUMTER CRISIS (DEC. 2, 1860–JAN. 8, 1861)
The question of the United States forts was now uppermost, and upon the action regarding them hung war or251 peace. Three commissioners—Robert W. Barnwell, James H. Adams, and James L. Orr—were appointed by South Carolina to lay the ordinance of secession before the President and Congress, and were empowered as agents of the state to treat for the delivery of the forts and other real estate, for the apportionment of the public debt, and for a division of all the property of the United States.165
In apprehension of the occupation of Sumter by Anderson, a patrol by two small steamers, the Nina and General Clinch, was established, with orders to prevent such action at all hazards and seize Fort Sumter if it should be attempted. A Lieutenant-Colonel Green was sent to Fort Monroe to observe any movements; and one Norris, at Norfolk, was employed to give information of any action at the Norfolk navy-yard. A committee of prominent men was sent to Fort Sumter, who thoroughly inspected the works and reported upon them.
Meantime, Major Anderson had been preparing, with great caution and foresight, to move his command. For some ten days the officers had been apprised that it was advisable to send the families of the men to the unoccupied barracks on James’ Island, known as Fort Johnson, a mile and a quarter west of Sumter. The work of mounting guns at Sumter had been discontinued for three days, and the elevating-screws and pintle-bolts sent to Moultrie so that the guns should not be used if the South-Carolinians should anticipate his action, and also to give the impression that occupancy of the fort was not designed. All stores and provisions at Fort Moultrie which could be carried, and personal belongings, except what the men could carry in their knapsacks, were loaded as for Fort Johnson in the two small sailing-vessels which were to carry the women and children.
Christmas Day had been fixed for the transfer, but252 heavy rains prevented. The delay might have had other consequences, for, curiously enough, on the morning of December 26th, Colonel R. B. Rhett, Jr., waited upon the governor, with a private warning letter from Washington to the effect that Anderson was about to seize Sumter, and urged the governor to secure it.166
All was made ready on December 26th, and the quartermaster who was to have charge of the little flotilla, loaded with “everything in the household line from boxes and barrels of provisions to cages of canary-birds,” was directed to go to Fort Johnson, but not to land anything. Upon a signal of two guns from Moultrie he was to go to Sumter on the plea that he had to report to Anderson............