Winfield Scott.

General Scott was evidently not aware, when he wrote this note, that the late Secretary of War, Floyd, was out of office. The President, having substituted Mr. Holt in his place as Secretary ad interim, was under no necessity whatever to act without the knowledge of that Department. He proceeded therefore to act promptly and in the usual manner upon the General’s recommendation. He received the General’s note on the evening of Sunday, the 30th of December. On the morning of Monday, the 31st, he gave instructions to the War and Navy Departments; the orders were issued on that day; and in the evening General Scott called upon the President and informed him that the Secretaries had issued the orders and that they were in his (the General’s) possession. The orders were that the sloop-of-war Brooklyn, with troops, military stores, and provisions, was to sail forthwith from Fortress Monroe to Fort Sumter. It could not be true, therefore, as was afterwards asserted by General Scott, that “the South Carolina commissioners had already been many days in Washington and no movement of defence (on the part of the United States) was permitted.” The commissioners arrived in Washington on the 27th of December. On the 30th they received the President’s answer. General Scott’s request was made to the President on the 30th, and on the 31st the orders for the Brooklyn to sail were in his hands. The commissioners’ insolent reply to the President was not delivered to him until the 2d of January. The Brooklyn was already under orders, but the orders were not despatched from Washington on the 31st for a reason that will presently appear.

It is now to be stated how a mercantile steamer, The Star of the West, came to be substituted for the Brooklyn, and to sail on this expedition. And here General Scott’s memory was utterly at fault in 1862. He then publicly stated that the President refused to allow any attempt to be made to reinforce Fort Sumter, because he was holding negotiations with the South Carolina commissioners; and that “afterwards Secretary Holt and myself [General Scott] endeavored, in vain, to obtain a ship-of-war for the purpose, and were finally obliged to employ the passenger steamer Star of the West.” It is most extraordinary that the General should have made this misstatement. The Star of the West was substituted for the Brooklyn by his own advice. “At the interview already referred to,” says Mr. Buchanan, “between the General and myself, on the evening of Monday, the 31st of December, I suggested to him that, although I had not received the South Carolina commissioners in their official capacity, but merely as private gentlemen, yet it might be considered as an improper act to send the Brooklyn with reinforcements to Fort Sumter until I had received an answer from them to my letter of the preceding day; that the delay could not continue more than forty-eight hours. He promptly concurred in this suggestion as gentlemanly and proper, and the orders were not transmitted to the Brooklyn on that evening. My anticipations were correct, for on the morning [afternoon] of the 2d of January I received their insolent note, and sent it back to them. In the meantime, however, the General had become convinced, on the representations of a gentleman whom I forbear to name, that the better plan, as the Secretaries of War and the Navy informed me, to secure secrecy and success, and reach the fort, would be to send a fast side-wheel steamer from New York with the reinforcement. Accordingly, the Star of the West was selected for this duty. The substitution of this steamer for the Brooklyn, which would have been able to defend herself in case of attack, was reluctantly yielded by me to the high military judgment of General Scott.”[[128]]

In consequence of this change, a short time had to elapse before the Star of the West, then at New York, could take on board the reinforcements. She sailed from New York on the 5th of January. On that day General Scott sent a despatch to his son-in-law, Colonel Scott, to countermand her departure, but it was not received until after she had gone to sea. The countermand was given for two reasons: first, because a despatch received by Mr. Holt on that day from Major Anderson stated in effect that he felt secure in his position; and secondly, and more emphatically, because on the same evening information reached the War Department that a heavy battery had been erected among the sand hills, at the entrance of Charleston harbor, capable of destroying any unarmed vessel that might attempt to enter.[[129]] Satisfied that there was no present necessity for sending reinforcements, and that when sent they ought to go in a vessel of war, the Government, with General Scott’s full concurrence,[[130]] after learning that the countermand had not reached the Star of the West before she sailed, took steps to overtake her. The following memorandum now lies before me:

MEMORANDUM FOR THE INFORMATION OF THE HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.

A despatch was forwarded, night of January 7, through the agency of the Navy Department, to the officer commanding recruits on board the steamship Star of the West, in almost exactly these words:

“This communication will be handed you by the Commander of the United States Steamer sloop-of-war Brooklyn.

“The object of his mission is twofold. First, to afford aid and succor in case your ship be shattered or injured; second, to convey this order of recall, in case you cannot land at Fort Sumter, to Fort Monroe, Hampton Roads, there to await further orders.

“In case of your return to Hampton Roads, send a telegraphic message here at once from Norfolk.

”Winfield Scott.