by Bruce Catton
Commanding these forts when November began was Colonel John L. Gardner, Massachusetts-born, old and near the end of his career; he was a veteran of the War of 1812 and he felt that the Charleston garrison ought to be increased. The War Department had suggested that the arms might be issued to the civilians who were employed on the completion of Fort Sumter so that they could be used as a species of militia, but Colonel Gardner felt that these men were bad security risks. Some of them were foreign-born and many of them were Southerners, possibly not to be trusted on Federal property with guns in their hands. Still, it would be comforting to have the weapons, and Colonel Gardner undertook to get them—and, in the process, set off a minor storm that blew him all the way out of the army.
The weapons were stored in a Federal arsenal that occupied a neatly kept four acres of grounds within the Charleston city limits. An officer bearing the cumbersome title of Military Storekeeper of Ordnance, F. C. Humphreys, with fourteen enlisted men, had charge of this place and its contents, which included 22,000 stands of arms, a good deal of heavy ordnance, and substantial quantities of ammunition and other military stores. Colonel Gardner wanted the small-arms ammunition and certain of the weapons moved to Fort Moultrie, where he could quickly lay his hands on them in case of need, but when he sent an officer ashore with a boat to make the transfer, on November 7, an angry crowd collected on the wharf and refused to let anything be shipped.1 Storekeeper Humphreys was not molested, and the arsenal remained intact, but six weeks before secession Charleston was refusing to let the Federal garrison increase its supply of arms, and it was complaining bitterly to Washington because the attempt had been made.
Captain Fitz John Porter, of the adjutant general’s office, went to Charleston a day or so after this to inspect and report. He found Fort Moultrie, the only active military post in the harbor, manned by Companies E and H of the First Artillery, along with the regimental band, for a total strength of ten officers and sixty-four men. Of the men, deducting musicians, sick men, and those under arrest for various military misdemeanors, there were thirty-six available for regular duty. Enlisted men and non-coms seemed intelligent and industrious, as such things went in the army in those days, and the officers appeared to be sober and on their toes. But Fort Moultrie itself was in rather poor shape.
Its walls enclosed less than two acres of ground. Its barracks, officers’ quarters, hospital, storehouses, everything indeed except the actual fortifications, were of wood, easily burned; along the sea front the winds had drifted sand nearly up to the top of the walls, so that any venturesome child could wander into the place without difficulty. A little farther away there were sandhills covered with scrubby undergrowth, so situated that a regiment of riflemen could sweep the fort’s parapets with fire from protected positions. Fort Moultrie was old-fashioned, even in 1860. It had no casemates to give guns and gunners proper protection, and all of its armament was mounted “en barbette”—out in the open, with nothing but a low parapet to provide shelter from hostile fire. In addition, there were a good many houses and summer cottages to interfere with defensive fire, and on top of everything else Fort Moultrie had been laid out so that most of its guns would bear on a single point in the channel leading from the open sea to the harbor. The fort had no guns controlling the approach from the rear, which was precisely the point from which an attack now was most likely to come. The place contained fifty-five guns of all calibers, including ten 8-inch Columbiads, and there were altogether too many of these guns for two under-strength companies of artillery to handle.
All in all, Captain Porter felt that the garrison ought to be increased, if that could be done without stirring up trouble. He mentioned “the inflammable and impulsive state of the public mind” in Charleston, and indicated that the commanding officer at the fort would need to show much prudence and good judgment “in all transactions which may bear upon the relations of the Federal Government to the State of South Carolina and of the Army to our citizens.”2
The administration in Washington already knew that the public mind in Charleston was inflammable and impulsive, and the row stirred up by Colonel Gardner’s attempt to get small arms and ammunition did not make him look like a man of prudence and good judgment; and, besides, he was Yankee-born, and the people of Charleston were vexed with him; so on November 15 Major Robert Anderson was named as his replacement, and Colonel Gardner was transferred away to stand by for orders that never came.
Anderson was a lean, graying veteran, clean-shaven, noted both for an excellent combat record (he had won brevets for gallantry in the Black Hawk and Mexican wars and had been wounded at Molino Del Rey) and for a mildly bookish quality, which was somewhat rare among army officers at that time. He had translated French texts on artillery and these were used as manuals of instruction, he had served with credit on various War Department boards, and he was known as an industrious and energetic officer. It seemed important, too, that he was a Southerner. Of Virginian ancestry, he had been born in Kentucky, and was married to a woman from Georgia. His principles were considered pro-slavery, and some of the officers at Fort Sumter told each other that this was why Secretary Floyd had chosen him.
Floyd seems, at his interview with Anderson, to have given the man little more than a quick fill-in on the background of the situation, along with orders to send back a report as soon as possible. Anderson went to Charleston, Colonel Gardner departed, and Anderson got down to business. He had no way of knowing it, but the Charleston forts were to be the effective bounds for all the remainder of his career. He would live until 1871, but everything of importance that he had to do, everything of real meaning to himself and to the nation, would be done here, at Moultrie and at Sumter, in the next five months.3
Anderson quickly realized that Fort Moultrie could be taken at any time. There were, indeed, funds available to put it in better condition; acting long before anyone had thought it would make any particular difference, Congress had voted money for repairs here, as well as for the slow completion of Fort Sumter, and it would be possible at least to get the sand shoveled away from the walls so that (as Captain Abner Doubleday, of the garrison, remarked) stray cattle would be kept from blundering into the place. But even when all had been done that could be done, there just were not enough soldiers present to make a good defense. In anything like a siege, the skeleton force would be spread so thin that the simple job of manning the works would quickly exhaust it.4
Fort Sumter was different. It was unfinished, and its guns were not yet mounted—although those in the lower tier would be, within three weeks, and the accommodations for the men were finished—but it had been built on a shoal out in the harbor, with deep water all around it, and even a small garrison there could hold out against any sudden rush by state militia. Fort Sumter, wrote Major Anderson on November 23, ought to be occupied. Castle Pinckney also should be manned, and there should be more men in Fort Moultrie; “the clouds are threatening and the storm may break upon us at any moment,” and there was no time to spare. Yet it would be risky. “I firmly believe,” the major wrote, “that as soon as the people of South Carolina learn that I have demanded reinforcements, and that they have been ordered, they will occupy Castle Pinckney and attack this fort.” If the reinforcements were sent, they had best reach the harbor before anyone in Charleston knew that they were on the way. If this could be done, Major Anderson felt that South Carolina would not try to take the forts by force but would rely on diplomacy; but if the forts remained weak, “she will, unless these works are surrendered on their first demand, most assuredly immediately attack us.”5
It was dangerous to be weak, and dangerous to be strong, and a few days later Anderson sent another dispatch from his quarters in Fort Moultrie. “There appears,” he wrote, “to be a romantic desire urging the South Carolinians to have possession of this work … I am inclined to think that if I had been here before the commencement of expenditures on this work, and supposed that the garrison would not be increased, I should ha
ve advised its withdrawal, with the exception of small guard, and its removal to Fort Sumter, which so perfectly commands the harbor and this fort.”6
The major’s next report, written on December I, was even gloomier. Officers who had visited the city reported that the people were determined to allow neither reinforcements nor extra supplies to be landed. It was clear that “anything which indicates a determination on the part of the General Government to act with an unusual degree of vigor in putting these works in a better state of defense will be regarded as an act of aggression” and would undoubtedly cause an attack on Fort Moultrie. The government, Major Anderson warned, must decide very quickly what it proposed to do about the forts once South Carolina had seceded. If it was going to surrender the forts on demand, Major Anderson needed to be informed and told what course to pursue; if it was not going to give up the forts, it had better send reinforcements at once, or at least station some men of war in the harbor. Either course, the major admitted, might cause some of the other Southern states to join South Carolina in secession. Meanwhile, for his own part, “I shall go steadily on, preparing for the worst, trusting hopefully in the God of Battles to guard and guide me in my course.”7
Major Anderson’s advice was pointed but unwelcome. The President was under intense pressure, and nearly a fortnight before the South Carolina convention voted to secede he had agreed to an informal truce, concerning which there would be hard words and bad feeling a little later. By the beginning of December, the people of South Carolina had persuaded themselves that the forts were destined to come into their possession as soon as secession was voted; this being the case, it was only fair to preserve the status quo, by agreement, until secession should become effective, and on December 8 most of the state’s Congressional delegation went to see Buchanan about it. They worked out with him a slightly vague agreement that at least for the present Major Anderson would neither be attacked nor reinforced, and Buchanan was given a letter dated December 9 setting forth this agreement as the South Carolina Congressmen understood it. The letter read as follows:
“In compliance with our statement to you yesterday, we now express to you our strong convictions that neither the constituted authorities nor any body of the people of the State of South Carolina will either attack or molest the U. S. Forts in the harbor of Charleston previously to the action of the convention, and we hope & believe not until an offer has been made through an accredited Representative to negotiate for an amicable arrangement of all matters between the State and the Federal government, provided that no reinforcements shall be sent into those Forts & their relative military status remains as at present.”
The letter was signed by J. W. McQueen, William Porcher Miles, M. L. Bonham, W. W. Boyce, and Lawrence M. Keitt.
Buchanan said afterward that he objected to the word “provided,” since it might imply an agreement which he would never make; and this, he said, was understood by everyone present. A member of the delegation, however, had a different version. Someone, he said, asked Buchanan: “Suppose you should hereafter change your policy for any reason, what then? That would put us, who are willing to use our personal interest to prevent any attack upon the forts before commissioners are sent on to Washington, in rather an embarrassing position.” To this, Buchanan was said to have replied: “Then I would first return you this paper.” The delegation left the White House feeling that the President was wavering but that he was bound in honor not to make any change in the situation then existing in Charleston harbor. The President, for his part, considered himself actually pledged to nothing once a vote to secede had been taken.8
To Major Anderson, meanwhile, had gone nothing much better than the expression of a pious wish that everything would turn out all right. From the adjutant general of the army, on December 1, came a message saying that the Secretary of War hoped all of the major’s actions would “be such as to be free from the charge of initiating a collision.” If attacked, Major Anderson would of course defend himself as best he could. Meanwhile, “the increase of the force under your command, however much to be desired, would, the Secretary thinks … but add to that excitement and might lead to serious results.”9
Major Anderson had at least been told that he could defend himself if someone started shooting at him, but he felt that the instructions were inadequate. He reminded the War Department that Fort Sumter was empty, except for the workmen, so that a boatload of militia could occupy it at any time. The South Carolina authorities, he added, were apparently beginning to think more and more about Sumter, and less about Moultrie, which was intelligent of them; once they had Fort Sumter, with its guns mounted and a proper garrison on hand, they would have perfect control of Charleston harbor, Washington could send in neither warships nor supply ships, and the garrison of Fort Moultrie could be driven out with great ease.
That Anderson needed better guidance was clear, even in the War Department, and at the end of the first week in December, Secretary Floyd summoned an austere and methodical officer from the adjutant general’s staff, Major Don Carlos Buell, and gave him a special mission of some delicacy. Buell was to go to Charleston and give to Major Anderson certain instructions, which the Secretary would now transmit verbally; they would amount to a broad explanation of general policy, rather than explicit orders, and much would be left to Major Anderson’s discretion—and, presumably, to the intelligence and fidelity with which Major Buell recited Secretary Floyd’s remarks. The Secretary would put nothing in writing.
Off to Charleston went Major Buell. He talked with Major Anderson, made his own appraisal of the situation, and finally concluded to do what the Secretary of War had refrained from doing-put the orders down in writing. To the best of his ability (and Major Buell was a painfully conscientious man) he drew up for Major Anderson’s benefit a memorandum of the verbal message which he had been given.
Dated December 11, this document began by reciting the administration’s desire to avoid a violent collision with the people of South Carolina. Major Anderson was not, “without evident and immediate necessity,” to do anything that even looked hostile. At the same time, he was to hold possession of the forts “and if attacked you are to defend yourself to the last extremity.” The major did not, to be sure, have enough men to occupy more than one of the forts, but an attack or an attempt to occupy any of them he would take as an act of hostility, whereupon he could put his command into whichever fort he considered most defensible. Furthermore: “You are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act.”
When Buell wrote this out, he had become convinced that unless the government acted, Fort Sumter would very soon be seized, whether with or without the order of the state authorities, and the feeling unquestionably influenced him in his interpretation of the Secretary’s instructions. When he gave the memorandum to Anderson he said: “This is all I am authorized to say to you, but my personal advice is, that you do not allow the opportunity to escape you.” He made some further suggestions, “all looking to the contemplated transfer of his command,” and then went back to Washington, bearing a copy of the paper he had written. After reporting to the Secretary, he gave it to the chief clerk of the War Department for deposit in the department’s files.10 Whether Floyd himself actually read the copy is a question; if he did, he quickly forgot about it, and he was behaving with uncommon fogginess these days.
President Buchanan, however, did see it, and one sentence bothered him. Major Anderson had been told that in case he was attacked he was to “defend himself to the last extremity,” and it seemed to James Buchanan that this was going beyond common sense. At the President’s instance, a letter over Floyd’s signature was sent to Anderson. The major was not to sacrifice his own life or the lives of his men in a hopeless fight; if he was obviously overpowered, he could bow to necessity and make the best terms possible—this would be the course of a brave and honorable officer, “and you will be fully justified in such acti
on.” Additionally, the part of Buell’s memorandum which told Anderson he could occupy any fort he chose if he had reason to believe that he was going to be attacked was mildly qualified by the addition of the word “defensive” in the description of the steps that were permitted him.11
Whether anyone realized it or not, the administration had at last taken a positive step. Until now Major Anderson had been told nothing except that he could defend himself if attacked. Now he was given full authority to move from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter—not merely if he was attacked, but whenever he had tangible evidence “of a design to proceed to a hostile act.” Inasmuch as tangible evidence of such a design lay all over Charleston as thick as a winter’s fog, Anderson had in substance been told he could go over to Sumter whenever he thought best. What effect such a move might have on the hypersensitive spirits of the South Carolina authorities—who considered, mistakenly or otherwise, that they had the President’s word of honor that no such step would be taken unless they were first consulted about it—was left entirely up to the imagination of anyone who chanced to think about it. Major Anderson had his government’s written permission to take, on his own initiative, a step that might set off all the guns.
It appears that Major Anderson himself did not immediately understand how broad his instructions had become. A few days after Major Buell left him, Anderson wrote to a Northern friend saying that he did wish the government would send him clearer orders. Why would not Washington tell him to abandon Fort Moultrie if he had to? “I would rather not be kept here to ‘Surrender’ when a demand is made for the Fort. I don’t like the name of ‘having surrendered.’ No one has been, or could have been, authorized to give a pledge of what this state will do.”12