The Class of 1846

by John Waugh

  There was also a new government in Washington. Abraham Lincoln had been sworn in on March 4. Buchanan, visibly relieved, had passed the brutal problem of secession and civil war on to his successor and returned to his peaceful estate in Pennsylvania. It had all been more than he could handle.

  In his inaugural address, Lincoln had said something very pertinent to the situation in Charleston Harbor. He said that he intended to “hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government.”41

  Estimates by all of the officers at Fort Sumter of how large a force it would take to hold, occupy, and possess their place were already on hand in Washington. They had written down their opinions in late February, at Anderson’s request. Their calculations ranged from Lieutenant Davis’s optimistic reckoning that it would take only 3,000 troops and six ships of war, to the more pessimistic and realistic predictions of the senior officers of the garrison that it would take 10,000 to 20,000 regulars, more than the nation possessed.42

  Anderson believed it couldn’t be done now with less than 20,000 good and well-disciplined troops. Seymour argued that it would take at least that. He considered it highly unlikely that Sumter could be provisioned at all now by ruse or by a few men with a few provisions. To supply it openly by vessels alone, unless they were shot-proof, was now virtually impossible. The numerous batteries frowning on them from every direction were simply too formidable. An all-out attack would bring help flying to Charleston from as many directions as there were guns. At least 20,000 secessionist marksmen from neighboring states, trained for months past, would swarm into South Carolina before an attacking force could set sail from northern ports. The harbor would be closed, and would become a Sebastopol. It struck Seymour that unlimited means would be necessary to break through, and by then the garrison would be starved out anyhow.43

  Being starved out was now a probability no matter what happened. Anderson had just told Washington, to Lincoln’s great dismay, that provisions were dangerously low and that he could not hold out much longer. Since Anderson had not been clamoring to be resupplied, everybody had assumed he was well-enough stocked to hold out for some time yet. But that wasn’t so; Anderson hadn’t asked to be resupplied simply because he hadn’t wanted to risk a war. When he was told within hours after his inaugural that the garrison was running out of everything, Lincoln was stunned. He had to decide what to do about it, and he had to decide soon.

  Lincoln and Anderson were acquainted. Anderson had been the inspector general of the Illinois Volunteers in the Black Hawk War in 1832 and had sworn young Captain Lincoln into the service with his Clary Grove boys and mustered him out again when the war ended. Now, nearly thirty years later, Lincoln wanted to do what he could for him.

  On March 15 the president asked his secretary of war, Simon Cameron, if he thought it wise under the circumstances to attempt to provision the fort, assuming it was still possible. The answer was an emphatic no. No lesser authority than the general in chief of the army himself, the tottering but still unquenchable Winfield Scott, said no. In the first days of the crisis in November and December, Scott had insistently urged it. Now he was saying no because “as a practical military question the time for succoring Fort Sumter with any means at hand had passed away nearly a month ago. Since then a surrender under assault or from starvation has been merely a question of time.”44

  Indeed, despite what Lincoln had said at his inaugural, it was generally assumed now that Fort Sumter was not to be provisioned, but evacuated—and soon. The highest officials in Washington—notably Secretary of State William H. Seward—were promising as much to South Carolina on a daily basis. By late March everybody seemed to believe it. Anderson and his little garrison also believed it, and when Lincoln’s friend Ward Hill Lamon visited Sumter on March 25 what he said made them certain of it. South Carolinians believed it, because their emissaries in Washington were assuring them that evacuation would occur at any moment. All those batteries Beauregard was building around Sumter might not be necessary after all.

  But everybody seemed to be forgetting what Lincoln had said in his inaugural, everybody but him. The president hadn’t given up the idea of holding, occupying, and possessing the government property. While the army hadn’t given him any encouragement, the navy had. There were those in the navy who not only believed Sumter could be provisioned, but that it ought to be, and that they could do it—and Lincoln was listening.

  The last days of March came and went and there was still no evacuation. Secessionists in Charleston and Montgomery were growing daily more uneasy. Associate Supreme Court Justice John A. Campbell, their chief inside source with a direct line to Seward, had assured them on March 15 that he was confident Sumter would be evacuated in five days. At the end of the five days he wired that he was confident that the decision still held. Then on All Fools’ Day he telegraphed Governor Pickens in Charleston that “I am authorized to say this Government will not undertake to supply Sumter without notice to you.”45

  Whoa! cried every secessionist from Charleston to Montgomery. That didn’t sound like evacuation to them. In fact, Lincoln had decided to adopt the navy’s plan and had set the wheels in motion.

  Anderson and his beleaguered little garrison knew nothing of this. They had been led to believe they would be evacuated, and were as anxious to be gone as the Confederates were to have them gone. Their last barrel of flour had been issued on March 29, and Anderson was sick of the whole business. “The truth is,” he wrote the war department, “the sooner we are out of this harbor the better. Our flag runs an hourly risk of being insulted, and my hands are tied by my orders, and if that was not the case, I have not the power to protect it. God grant that neither I nor any other officer of our Army may be again placed in a position of such mortification and humiliation.”46

  On April 7, the day after he wrote that, a message arrived from Washington pressing him to hold out if he could until the eleventh or twelfth, for flour was on its way. An expedition was to arrive at Charleston harbor, and if his flag was still flying it would “attempt to provision you, and, in case the effort is resisted, will endeavor also to re-enforce you.”47

  This news took Anderson’s breath away. He replied shakily that he would do his duty as a soldier, “though I frankly say that my heart is not in the war which I see is to be thus commenced.”48

  The next day the secessionists, who had been in an angry sweat since Campbell had told them Sumter would not be resupplied without advance word, got the advance word—with help from Lieutenant Talbot. In the midst of all the turmoil, Talbot had been transferred to Washington—something he had been expecting—and had barely arrived when the secretary of war sent him back to Charleston with a message for Pickens from the president. Talbot and Robert S. Chew of the state department arrived in Charleston on April 8 and Chew formally presented the bad news to the governor and Beauregard.

  Allowing a moment for Beauregard to digest the notice of the resupply operation, Talbot then asked to be permitted to return to Sumter, to be with the garrison. Certainly not, snapped Beauregard. Then could he go there, speak with Anderson, and return? Absolutely not, Beauregard said icily, there would be no further communication whatever with Anderson now except to convey an order to evacuate the fort.49

  In a few quick strokes, Beauregard then cut Sumter off entirely from the outside world. He seized all of its mail—including Anderson’s sad-hearted letter to Washington acknowledging the coming attempt to provision him—and stopped all supplies to the fort. He wired the news to the Confederate secretary of war in Montgomery and sat back to await further orders.

  On April 1, a month after he arrived at Charleston, Beauregard had telegraphed Secretary Walker that all of his batteries were in place and ready to open on Sumter. “What instructions?” he had asked then.50 Now the instructions came—emphatic and tight-lipped. Lincoln wanted to send groceries to starving men, but as far as the Confederate leadership at Montgomery was concerned war was coming with the
groceries.

  “Under no circumstances,” the Confederate war department now wired Beauregard, “are you to allow provisions to be sent to Fort Sumter.” Two days later, on April 10, the provisional government went a step further. If Beauregard thought that the intention was to supply Fort Sumter by force, he was to “at once demand its evacuation and if this is refused proceed, in such manner as you may determine, to reduce it.” Beauregard replied that the demand would be delivered the next day at noon.51

  The next day, April 11, broke bright and clear in Charleston, and Dr. Crawford was clearly impressed by what was happening in the harbor. From the first break of dawn the waters swarmed with activity. The harbor was covered with the sails of ships putting hastily to sea. The guard boats were running busily between the harbor and the bar, signaling incessantly. “Nothing,” Crawford marveled, “could exceed the activity everywhere manifested.”52

  Anderson could have explained it all to Crawford. As he gazed on the scene it was clear to him that the Confederates were expecting the arrival of a hostile force, and were making ready to receive it. They were obviously aiming their guns where provisions would have to be landed. “Had they been in possession of the information contained in your letter,” he wrote the war department with no hope that the message would ever be posted, “they could not have made better arrangements than those they have made, and are making, to thwart the contemplated scheme.”53

  They were, of course, in possession of the information, having confiscated all the mail, and were acting accordingly. Beauregard had stopped every other courtesy as well, and the surveillance of Sumter had become implacable. The noose had been hitched up several notches.

  For Foster, life had been more hectic than normal for the past several days. The four-gun battery on Sullivan’s Island had been unmasked on April 8. The battery could enfilade the terrepleins on both flanks of the works at Sumter and sweep the outside of the scarp wall where a provisioning vessel would be likely to tie up. Foster rushed to throw up a traverse to intercept the fire and to shield the guns that would have to reply to such an attack. At dawn on the eleventh the floating Confederate battery on the upper end of Sullivan’s Island had been run up and anchored on the shore where it could sweep the left flank of the fort. This was particularly frustrating, since the breakwater would protect the battery from any of Sumter’s ricocheting shots.54

  Foster cut an opening large enough to receive a barrel at the only embrasure that could possibly be used under the circumstances. The reprovisioning plan seemed madness, and the sense of doom and foreboding continued to grow in Anderson’s mind. He felt he ought to have been informed earlier and allowed to counsel against the scheme. He had told the war department in one of the letters the Confederates had confiscated that he feared “its result cannot fail to be disastrous to all concerned.” It was going to be particularly suicidal for the men who would attempt to reprovision them. Anderson and his officers and men felt more fear for their fate than for the garrison’s.55

  This meant war. But it was too late now. The ships of the expedition force had already sailed from New York. They would soon be standing outside the bar, ready to blast their way in. There was nothing to do but get ready to receive them. Anderson moved the garrison out of quarters under the cover of the casemates. Foster and his engineers readied water pipes and faucets to fight the inevitable fires the bombardment was certain to start. The men distributed shot and shell to the guns. Cartridge bags—the cloth containers for the cannon charges—were going to be a problem. There were only about seven hundred on hand, not nearly enough. More would have to be stitched out of whatever cloth they could find—blankets, sheets, shirts, socks, anything—and there were but half a dozen needles in the entire fort; there would have to be sewing around the clock.56

  Even as they worked, their cupboard was becoming alarmingly bare. Foster had tried to get his forty sympathetic workmen still at Sumter evacuated, but the Confederates wouldn’t hear of it. So they had to continue to be fed with the rest of the garrison. Bread, like cartridge bags, had been in scarce supply for days. Now it was gone. So was firewood; they had dismantled the last of the temporary buildings on the parade and burned the wood days ago.

  If food and firewood were more plentiful on the Confederate side, the mood was hardly more upbeat. Martin J. Crawford had wired Beauregard grimly from Washington on April 9 that “diplomacy has failed. The sword must now preserve our independence.”57

  That about summed it up. The Confederate provisional government was unsheathing the sword, and while most South Carolinians favored it, they weren’t necessarily happy about it. Mary Chesnut had begun keeping a diary while her husband, James Chesnut, Jr., the former U.S. senator from South Carolina and now an aide to General Beauregard, was away in the harbor doing mysterious things.

  “Why did that green goose Anderson go into Fort Sumter?” Mary agonized in her diary. “Then everything began to go wrong.”58

  Another errant U.S. senator, Louis Trezevant Wigfall of Texas, a stormy hothead whom Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune described as “a Carolinian by birth, a Nullifier by training, and a duelist by vocation,”59 had come down to Charleston, still on the Senate payroll, to be in the middle of things. Mary Chesnut judged him to be “the only thoroughly happy person I see.”60

  Young Roger Atkinson Pryor, another firebrand and ex-U.S. congressman, had come down to Charleston to be in the middle of things, too—and if possible to help get something started. Unlike Wigfall, he had resigned his seat in Congress, to attach himself to Beauregard’s staff and to agitate openly. He was disgusted that his state, Virginia, hadn’t yet seceded, but he knew exactly what needed to be done to make that happen.

  Speaking in a hotel in Charleston on April 10 he said: “I thank you especially that you have at last annihilated this accursed Union, reeking with corruption and insolent with excess of tyranny. Not only is it gone, but gone forever. As sure as tomorrow’s sun will rise upon us, just so sure will old Virginia be a member of the Southern Confederacy; and I will tell your Governor what will put her in the Southern Confederacy in less than an hour by a Shrewsbury clock. Strike a blow! The very moment that blood is shed, old Virginia will make common cause with her sisters of the South.”61

  The ball was about to commence.

  The

  First

  Shot

  General Beauregard’s three staff officers stepped into a boat in Charleston at about 2:30 in the afternoon on April 11. They rowed across the harbor toward Fort Sumter under the muzzles of forty-seven Confederate guns, aimed and ready.

  John Gray Foster knew there were forty-seven. He had counted them all several times. There were thirty cannon and seventeen mortars. He had watched them go up through his binoculars. He had estimated their caliber and range, pinpointed their positions, and noted their ever-improving accuracy in practice rounds or when they fired salutes to visiting Confederate dignitaries. He thought he had a handle now on what the garrison was in for when the ball began.1

  Fort Sumter could theoretically reply with equal firepower. The garrison had twenty-seven guns on the barbette tier and twenty-one in the casemates below; forty-eight in all, plus five columbiads on the parade serving as makeshift mortars, one of them tilted toward Charleston, the other four toward Cummings Point only 1,325 yards away. But when all that metal started flying in from around the harbor it was doubtful if any but the twenty-one round-shotted guns in the casemates could be fired. It was doubtful if any living thing could survive on the open-aired barbette tier or on the parade. It was doubtful if any of these guns, protected or unprotected, could be fired for long given the limited supply of ammunition and the scarcity of cartridge bags and needles to stitch them with.2

  The little boat from Charleston, flying a white flag and carrying Beauregard’s three aides-de-camp, Colonel James Chesnut, Jr.—Mary’s husband—Lieutenant Colonel A. R. Chisolm, and Captain Stephen D. Lee, reached Sumter’s wharf at 3:45 in the afternoon.
Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, the officer of the day, went out to meet them, and Major Anderson received them in the guardroom.3

  The three emissaries handed Anderson his eviction notice. “The Confederate States,” it read, “can no longer delay assuming actual possession of a fortification commanding the entrance of one of their harbors, and necessary to its defense and security.” Beauregard assured Anderson that “all proper facilities will be afforded for the removal of yourself and command, together with company arms and property, and all private property, to any post in the United States which you may select. The flag which you have upheld so long and with so much fortitude, under the most trying circumstances, may be saluted by you on taking it down.”4

  Anderson read Beauregard’s dispatch, excused himself, and called his officers to a conference in his private quarters. There he laid out the facts: A relief expedition was on the way, might be standing in the harbor at any moment, and here is the formal demand to evacuate. What did they think? A long earnest discussion followed, and Anderson emerged half an hour later with a written reply.5 “It is a demand with which I regret that my sense of honor, and of my obligations to my Government, prevent my compliance,” it said.6