by Bruce Catton
Although he would presently see that the responsibility which had been given to him was almost fantastically heavy for one aging major of artillery to bear unaided, Major Anderson would not grow entirely discouraged. He was devoutly religious, and to a clergyman in New Jersey he wrote: “Were it not for my firm reliance upon and trust in Our Heavenly Father, I could not but be disheartened, but I feel that I am here in the performance of a solemn duty, and am assured that He, who has shielded me when Death claimed his victims all around me, will not desert me now. Pray for me and my little band—I feel assured that the prayer will be heard.”
He traced the difficulties of his position: Fort Moultrie was surrounded by houses, which helped make it indefensible; he could not remove the houses until an attack on him had actually begun; and, anyway, he did not have enough ammunition to waste any that way. But he and his command would do their best, and he was proud of the men under him. “Were you to see this little band, to note how zealously they attend to any duty I require of them, frequently voluntarily engaging in some work which, they know, I wish executed, how entirely they refrain from drinking, you would see that they were men who in the hour of trial would do their duty—For myself I can say frankly truthfully that I have not had a moment of despondency—I feel that He who made me will guide me through any trials there may be in store for me.”13
To an acquaintance in Washington, Anderson wrote frankly that he despaired of the safety of the Union. If South Carolina could go out alone, he said, he would not mind seeing her “make the trial of exercising her sovereignty out of it,” but he felt that this was a vain hope. “Other states will, however, follow her example and our glorious Confederacy will disappear from the galaxy of Nations, and be replaced by the uncertain lights of a milky way—Were it not for my trust in God, I would despair of extricating myself from my present critical position but I have no misgivings. He will teach me the way.”14
The trials would be heavy, and matters by now had reached a point at which almost any accident could start a war. There was a sudden, ominous flurry on December 17, when Captain J. G. Foster, of the Corps of Engineers, present in Charleston to supervise the work that was being done on the forts, went to the Charleston arsenal to get some machinery that was needed at Fort Sumter. While there it occurred to him that forty muskets that were to have been transferred early in November had not actually been sent because of the uproar made at the time, and Foster had them shipped to Fort Moultrie. Since nothing that anyone did remained a secret in Charleston in these days, news of this immediately got around, and (as Foster might have foreseen) it raised much trouble. In Washington, Trescot got a frantic telegram announcing that if the arms were not immediately returned “a collision may occur at any moment,” and Trescot went to Floyd’s house, roused the Secretary from a sickbed, and had him send a telegram ordering the forty muskets sent back to the arsenal. The next day Trescot got a telegram from J. Johnson Pettigrew, aide-de-camp to Governor Pickens. The governor was glad the arms were being returned, as otherwise there would have been great danger—and now it was imperative that there be no movement of troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter: “Inform the Secretary of War.”15
Governor Pickens, as a matter of fact, had had his eye on Fort Sumter from the very first. He was inaugurated on December 16, and on the next day he sent a confidential agent—Major D. H. Hamilton, of the First Regiment South Carolina Volunteers—off to Washington to demand that Fort Sumter be given up. To spare the effusion of blood (said a letter which Pickens gave Major Hamilton for President Buchanan), it would be wise of the President to give the fort up and to let the South Carolina authorities take immediate possession, “in order to give a feeling of safety to the community.” As a parting shot, Pickens added: “If something of the kind be not done, I cannot answer for the consequences.”
Major Hamilton got to Washington, and Trescot took him to the White House, but his meeting with the President was not happy. James Buchanan felt that he had done about all he could properly be asked to do to keep the peace with South Carolina. He had been bitterly attacked in the Northern press in consequence, there was even talk of a Congressional investigation into his conduct … and, as Trescot hastily wrote to Governor Pickens, to press the Sumter matter now might drive him all the way over into the opposition camp. Pressured by Trescot, the governor withdrew the letter.16
Trescot had judged matters accurately. When the news that Pickens had withdrawn his request reached the White House, Buchanan was in the act of composing a letter that, for him, was blistering. In it he informed Governor Pickens: “As an executive officer of this Government, I have no power to surrender to any human authority Fort Sumpter or any of the other forts or public property in South Carolina. To do this would on my part as I have already said be a naked act of usurpation.… If South Carolina should attack any of these Forts she will then become the assailant in a war against the United States.… I have, therefore, never been more astonished in my life, than to learn from you that unless Fort Sumter be delivered into your hands, you cannot be answerable for the consequences.” The letter was never finished and was never sent. Dated December 20, it presumably was drafted before Buchanan knew South Carolina had voted to secede. It remained in the presidential files, silent evidence that even with a Buchanan in the White House it was possible for South Carolina to press her luck too far.17
Governor Pickens, meanwhile, was on the alert. Reaching Charleston while the secession convention was in session preparing for its momentous vote, he sent an engineer officer to examine Fort Sumter in detail, conferred with a delegation from the state legislature regarding the necessity for keeping Federal troops out of the fort, and then, late at night, sent for Captain Charles H. Simonton, of the Washington Light Infantry, to give certain instructions.
The Washington Light Infantry was on duty patrolling the area around the Federal arsenal, to keep munitions from being removed. Now its duties were to be broadened. Governor Pickens told Captain Simonton that Major Anderson was believed to be thinking about moving his command to Fort Sumter. This, he said, must be prevented at all hazards, although an actual conflict should be avoided if possible. Captain Simonton was to take a picked group from his command, embark on a steamer that would be provided, and cruise back and forth between Sumter and Moultrie. He was to hail every boat that passed from one fort to the other, and if he found United States troops on board he was to recite his orders—namely, that a troop transfer was to be prevented no matter what the cost. If the Federal officer in charge of any floating detachment, having heard these orders, persisted in trying to go to Fort Sumter, Captain Simonton was to resist by force, sink the boat, and immediately occupy Fort Sumter himself. He was to use his own discretion in accomplishing the end in view.18
Captain Simonton embarked his command and got down to it—and the narrowing-down process had reached its limit at last. The power to make the decision which everyone else had evaded lay now in the hands of two obscure subordinates, a major of United States artillery and a captain of South Carolina infantry. Each man had been given discretionary orders. Between them, they could say whether there would be a war.
3: An Action and a Decision
Christmas Day in Charleston was rainy and disagreeable, but the rain stopped during the night and December 26 came in clear and sunny, with a pleasant warmth in the air. Having considered his situation in detail, Major Robert Anderson concluded that the “tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act” mentioned in his orders was as clear as need be, and he made up his mind: he would move the garrison over to Fort Sumter.
In his appraisal of the situation, Major Anderson had a number of points to consider. The work of repairing Fort Moultrie had gone well. A large force of civilian workers had been employed, the troublesome sand had been shoveled away from the parapets, the guns were properly mounted, and if the fort had a proper garrison it could probably be held against any assault. But that, of course was the trouble:
a proper garrison Fort Moultrie did not have and could not get, and under the circumstances the place could not be defended. It was hard enough just to keep out the idlers and the sight-seers. There was a crowd around all day long, from dawn until dusk—newspaper correspondents, militiamen, unending numbers of ordinary citizens, making sketches, taking notes, asking questions, prying into everything, being so busy and so numerous that the major had felt obliged to post guards and close his gates: a step that caused angry mutterings and led people to talk resentfully about hirelings and mercenaries. Members of the garrison were under constant strain; at one stage two of the officers, worn out by the need for everlasting watchfulness, had put their wives on duty on the parapet while they themselves tried to catch up on lost sleep. Worried, Captain Foster notified the War Department that two guard steamers were patrolling the waters around Fort Sumter, and Captain Doubleday believed that South Carolina refrained from seizing Fort Sumter at once only because the authorities felt that the construction job there might as well be completed with Federal money: why take over an unfinished fort when a finished one could be had for a little waiting?1
Since it was impossible to keep any secrets with a crowd of inquisitive strangers watching everything and questioning everybody, Anderson kept his intentions to himself. December 26 began like any other day, except that the post quartermaster was ordered to charter some barges and schooners and have them drawn up by the sea wall as near the fort as might be. If the garrison left Fort Moultrie, the wives and children of the enlisted men would lose their quarters, so the quartermaster was to take them across the harbor to old Fort Johnson, on the south side, a fort which was no longer operational but which did contain some dilapidated living quarters. Meanwhile, rowboats such as were used to transport workmen to and from Fort Sumter were to be beached on another part of the water front; and, for the rest, the ordinary routine prevailed in Fort Moultrie that day, and at dusk Captain Doubleday walked up from his quarters to invite Major Anderson to come down and have a cup of tea.
It was no day for afternoon tea. Doubleday noticed that the other officers were standing about the major, acting as if they had just learned something big, and he understood what was on their minds when the major, ignoring the invitation to tea, told him: “Captain, in twenty minutes you will leave with your company for Fort Sumter.”
Doubleday hurried off to muster his command, and while the men were collecting muskets and knapsacks, he stepped into his own quarters to tell Mrs. Doubleday to pack her belongings as fast as she could and slip out into the sand hills somewhere; he was convinced that the move to Fort Sumter would start a big fight, and he wanted her out of the line of fire. Mrs. Doubleday got her things together, went out the sally port, and took refuge in the house of the post sutler, moving from there to the home of the post chaplain; she would go next day to a hotel in Charleston, and would leave for the North as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the families of the enlisted men went to the boats that were to take them to Fort Johnson, and as the twilight deepened, the officers and men of the Fort Moultrie garrison set off for their own boats.
On this evening the soldiers’ luck was in, and the procession to the beach went unnoticed. The sun had gone down and the winter twilight was thick, the regular crowd of sight-seers had dispersed, and the militiamen who ordinarily kept watching the fort seemed to have gone home to supper; the streets of the little town of Moultrieville were deserted, and the parade of two diminutive companies of men went unnoticed. The whole garrison was on hand, except for a rear guard left in Fort Moultrie—seven privates, four non-coms, and the post’s doctor, a Pennsylvanian named Samuel W. Crawford. Crawford had been on the army roster for nine years with the rank of assistant surgeon, but tonight he was acting as a line officer and the role seems to have pleased him; once he got north he would transfer from the medical corps to the infantry, and he would end with a major general’s commission. With him, to take more immediate charge of the rear guard’s activities, was Captain Foster, who as an officer of the Corps of Engineers was not properly a member of the garrison.
At the water front, officers and men got into the boats as speedily as they could, and after arranging their baggage they shoved off. Back in Moultrie, Foster and Crawford had a couple of the fort’s biggest guns loaded and trained out over the bay, ready to sink any secessionist guard boat that might try to interfere; and with this support the little flotilla steered for Fort Sumter.
It had not gone far before Doubleday saw one of the guard boats heading for his own craft. He had his men remove their coats and lay them over their muskets, which were on the thwarts beside them, and he himself took off his military cap and threw open his coat so that his brass buttons would not be seen; with luck, the people on the guard boat might fail to recognize these men as soldiers, would perhaps assume that this rowboat simply carried workers over to Fort Sumter.
The guard boat came closer, and at a distance of perhaps 100 yards it drifted to a stop, motionless paddle wheels dripping, officers on the upper deck peering through the dusk at the open boat. Farther away, apparently not seen from the guard boat, the rest of Anderson’s boats kept on their way; Doubleday’s men continued to row with the clumsy care of landsmen; and on the parapet of Fort Moultrie, back in the shore-line dark, Foster and Crawford and the enlisted men swung two ponderous Columbiads around and tried to get the South Carolina guard boat in their sights. At last the people on the guard boat concluded that nothing out of the ordinary was going on, the paddle wheels began to dip and splash again, and the steamer chuffed off. In fifteen minutes the small boats touched the esplanade in front of Fort Sumter. The soldiers put on their coats and picked up their muskets, formed rank on the open wharf before the main gate, swung into column, and went tramping into Fort Sumter.2
Inside the fort were more than 100 carpenters, bricklayers, stonecutters, and other construction workers, lounging about with the day’s chores at an end. These, without ceremony, were herded out to the esplanade and tumbled into the boats to return to Charleston before they were entirely clear as to whether the fort was being occupied by soldiers of the United States or soldiers of South Carolina. Anderson saw to it that proper guards were posted, set details to work blocking some of the open embrasures on the ground level, perfected his defenses as well as he could with the means at hand. Then he had two guns fired, to notify the remnant at Fort Moultrie that the transfer had been completed. By the oddest chance, old Mr. Ruffin was near when these guns were fired. He had embarked on a steamer that afternoon to go down to Fernandina, and he was a few miles from Fort Moultrie, standing on the upper deck, when the sound of the guns went echoing across the darkened harbor. It puzzled him, and in his diary he wrote that “it was an unusual occurrence … I supposed this firing at so unusual an hour must have been a signal for something.”3
A signal it was, to reverberate far beyond Charleston; bearing news, first of all, to the state authorities that they had been tricked. The guard ships set their sirens wailing and burned blue lights, and from lookout stations along the water front, rockets soared into the night. At daybreak the South Carolina troops moved into Fort Moultrie—which Foster, Crawford, and their squad had of course evacuated—and a little later in the morning Castle Pinckney also was seized. The Federal arsenal in Charleston was taken over on December 30. Major Anderson, meanwhile, having satisfied himself that everything that ought to be done tonight had been done, hurried to write a note to his wife.
“Thanks be to God,” he wrote. “I give them with my whole heart for His having given me the will and shewn the way to bring my command to this Fort. I can now breathe freely. The whole force of S. Carolina would not venture to attack us.… I have not time to write more—as I must make my report to the Ad Gen.… Praise be to God for His merciful kindness to us. I think that the whole country north and South should thank Him for this step.”4
In more formal vein he then wrote to Adjutant General Samuel Cooper, informing him that “I have just com
pleted, by the blessing of God, the removal to this fort of all my garrison, except the surgeon, four non-commissioned officers and seven men.” He had left orders, he said, to have the guns at Fort Moultrie spiked and the gun carriages destroyed, and he had told Captain Foster to destroy all of the ammunition which could not be moved to Fort Sumter. He added that “the step which I have taken was, in my opinion, necessary to prevent the effusion of blood.”5
In his belief that both North and South would offer thanks for the move to Fort Sumter, Major Anderson had been overoptimistic. The news hit official Washington like an earthquake, the force of it great enough finally to compel President Buchanan to face up to unpleasant reality.
South Carolina’s commissioners, chosen to negotiate for the cession of Federal property, had just reached the capital. They were men of high standing—Robert W. Barnwell, J. H. Adams, and James L. Orr—and Buchanan, who could find nothing in the book telling what a President should do when a state has declared itself independent, had consented to receive them on December 27. On the morning of that day, in preparation for this meeting, the commissioners were in deep conference with Trescot, who had at last resigned as Assistant Secretary of State and who was remaining in Washington as South Carolina’s agent. The conference had hardly begun when the news from Charleston arrived, brought by the indignant Senator Louis Trezevant Wigfall, of Texas, burly duelist, master of Senate debate, a forceful battler for states’ rights. The men expressed shocked disbelief. Trescot, who had seen much of Secretary Floyd of late, was sure that if Anderson had done this thing, he had done it without authority. At this moment Floyd himself entered, and when Trescot turned to him and remarked, “I will pledge my life, if it has been done, it has been done without orders,” Floyd smiled confidently.