Thus ended the second mission from South Carolina to the President, and thus was he relieved from the truce concluded by Major Anderson. But in the mean time, before the termination of this truce, the action of the General Assembly of Virginia, instituting the Peace Convention, had interposed an insurmountable obstacle to the reinforcement of Fort Sumter, unless attacked or in immediate danger of attack, without entirely defeating this beneficent measure.
The attention of the reader must now be directed to the harbor of Pensacola. To unravel and correct the misrepresentations which have been accepted as part of the history of Mr. Buchanan’s administration, is no agreeable, but it is a very necessary duty. If General Scott, at this period of his life, had not been a man very far advanced in years and burthened with increasing infirmities, he ought to be held to a severer responsibility than I am disposed to apply to him, on account of the entirely unwarrantable imputations which, with great personal inconsistency, he allowed himself to cast upon Mr. Buchanan, after the latter had retired to private life, and after new men had come into power who made it their policy to blame the preceding President.
Pensacola, a town in the western end of the State of Florida, is on a broad bay of the same name, which opens into the Gulf of Mexico. The narrow entrance is commanded by Fort Pickens, built on the extreme western point of Santa Rosa Island, and standing boldly upon the Gulf. This fortress, unlike Fort Sumter, could be relieved at any time by a naval force, which nothing could assail before the fort was reached. Florida “seceded” on the 10th of January. The command of the State troops was assumed by Colonel William H. Chase, previously an officer of the United States corps of engineers. These State forces suddenly expelled a small body of United States troops from the town of Pensacola and the adjacent navy yard. This body of regular troops was under the command of Lieutenant Slemmer, an officer of the artillery, and it consisted of between seventy and eighty men. They took refuge in Fort Pickens. Unless relieved, they were in great danger of being captured by a much superior force, and they were in pressing need of provisions. General Scott’s charge against Mr. Buchanan, made in a paper which he presented to President Lincoln in 1861, and which he called a report, was couched in the following language:
“The Brooklyn, with Captain Vogdes’ company alone, left the Chesapeake for Fort Pickens about January 22d, and on the 29th, President Buchanan having entered into a quasi armistice with certain leading seceders at Pensacola and elsewhere, caused Secretaries Holt and Toucey to instruct, in a joint note, the commanders of the war vessels off Pensacola, and Lieutenant Slemmer, commanding Fort Pickens, to commit no act of hostility, and not to land Captain Vogdes’ company unless the fort should be attacked. That joint note I never saw, but suppose the armistice was consequent upon the Peace Convention at Washington, and was understood to terminate with it.”
The facts are as follows:
1. General Scott not only saw the joint order issued by Secretaries Holt and Toucey, but he approved of it entirely. This is made certain by a note written by Mr. Holt to the President, on the day the order was issued, the 29th of January, informing him of the fact. The original of this note was sealed up by the President and put away. It reads as follows:
[SECRETARY HOLT TO THE PRESIDENT.]
“My Dear Sir:—
“The words [of the joint order] are ‘the provisions necessary for the supply of the fort you will land.’ I think the language could not be more carefully guarded. If, on communication with the fort, it is found that no provisions are needed, then none will be landed.
“I have the satisfaction of saying that on submitting the paper to General Scott, he expressed himself satisfied with it, saying that there could be no objection to the arrangement in a military point of view or otherwise.