The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1

by Jefferson Davis

In the mean time, Mr. Cass, Secretary of State, had resigned his position early in December, on the ground of the refusal of the President to send reënforcements to Charleston. On the occupation of Fort Sumter by Major Anderson, Mr. Floyd, Secretary of War, taking the ground that it was virtually a violation of a pledge given or implied by the Government, had asked that the garrison should be entirely withdrawn from the harbor of Charleston, and, on the refusal of the President to consent to this, had tendered his resignation, which was promptly accepted.[¹¹⁸]

This is believed to be a correct outline of the earlier facts with regard to the Charleston forts, and in giving it I have done so, as far as possible, without prejudice, or any expression of opinion upon the motives of the actors.

The kind relations, both personal and political, which had long existed between Mr. Buchanan and myself, had led him, occasionally, during his presidency, to send for me to confer with him on subjects that caused him anxiety, and warranted me in sometimes calling upon him to offer my opinion on matters of special interest or importance. Thus it was that I had communicated with him freely in regard to the threatening aspect of events in the earlier part of the winter of 1860-'61. When he told me of the work that had been done, or was doing, at Fort Moultrie—that is, the elevation of its parapet by crowning it with barrels of sand—I pointed out to him the impolicy as well as inefficiency of the measure. It seemed to me impolitic to make ostensible preparations for defense, when no attack was threatened; and the means adopted were inefficient, because any ordinary field-piece would knock the barrels off the parapet, and thus to render them only hurtful to the defenders. He inquired whether the expedient had not been successful at Fort Brown, on the Rio Grande, in the beginning of the Mexican war, and was answered that the attack on Fort Brown had been made with small-arms, or at great distance.

After the removal of the garrison to the stronger and safer position of Fort Sumter, I called upon him again to represent, from my knowledge of the people and the circumstances of the case, how productive the movement would be of discontent, and how likely to lead to collision. One of the vexed questions of the day was, by what authority the collector of the port should be appointed, and the rumor was, that instructions had been given to the commanding officer at Fort Sumter not to allow vessels to pass, unless under clearance from the United States collector. It was easy to understand that, if a vessel were fired upon under such circumstances, it would be accepted as the beginning of hostilities—a result which both he and I desired to avert, as the greatest calamity that could be foreseen or imagined. My opinion was, that the wisest and best course would be to withdraw the garrison altogether from the harbor of Charleston.

The President's objection to this was, that it was his bounden duty to preserve and protect the property of the United States. To this I replied, with all the earnestness the occasion demanded, that I would pledge my life that, if an inventory were taken of all the stores and munitions in the fort, and an ordnance-sergeant with a few men left in charge of them, they would not be disturbed. As a further guarantee, I offered to obtain from the Governor of South Carolina full assurance that, in case any marauders or lawless combination of persons should attempt to seize or disturb the property, he would send from the citadel of Charleston an adequate guard to protect it and to secure its keepers against molestation.

The President promised me to reflect upon this proposition, and to confer with his Cabinet upon the propriety of adopting it. All Cabinet consultations are secret; which is equivalent to saying that I never knew what occurred in that meeting to which my proposition was submitted. The result was not communicated to me, but the events which followed proved that the suggestion was not accepted.

Major Anderson, who commanded the garrison, had many ties and associations that bound him to the South. He performed his part like the true soldier and man of the finest sense of honor that he was; but that it was most painful to him to be charged with the duty of holding the fort as a threat to the people of Charleston is a fact known to many others as well as to myself. We had been cadets together. He was my first acquaintance in that corps, and the friendship then formed was never interrupted. We had served together in the summer and autumn of 1860, in a commission of inquiry into the discipline, course of studies, and general condition of the United States Military Academy. At the close of our labors the commission had adjourned, to meet again in Washington about the end of the ensuing November, to examine the report and revise it for transmission to Congress. Major Anderson's duties in Charleston Harbor hindered him from attending this adjourned meeting of the commission, and he wrote to me, its chairman, to explain the cause of his absence. That letter was lost when my library and private papers were "captured" from my home in Mississippi. If any one has preserved it as a trophy of war, its publication would show how bright was the honor, how broad the patriotism of Major Anderson, and how fully he sympathized with me as to the evils which then lowered over the country.

In comparing the past and the present among the mighty changes which passion and sectional hostility have wrought, one is profoundly and painfully impressed by the extent to which public opinion has drifted from the landmarks set up by the sages and patriots who formed the constitutional Union, and observed by those who administered its government down to the time when war between the States was inaugurated. Mr. Buchanan, the last President of the old school, would as soon have thought of aiding in the establishment of a monarchy among us as of accepting the doctrine of coercing the States into submission to the will of a majority, in mass, of the people of the United States. When discussing the question of withdrawing the troops from the port of Charleston, he yielded a ready assent to the proposition that the cession of a site for a fort, for purposes of public defense, lapses, whenever that fort should be employed by the grantee against the State by which the cession was made, on the familiar principle that any grant for a specific purpose expires when it ceases to be used for that purpose. Whether on this or any other ground, if the garrison of Fort Sumter had been withdrawn in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution of the United States, from which the power to apply coercion to a State was deliberately and designedly excluded, and if this had been distinctly assigned as a reason for its withdrawal, the honor of the United States Government would have been maintained intact, and nothing could have operated more powerfully to quiet the apprehensions and allay the resentment of the people of South Carolina. The influence which such a measure would have exerted upon the States which had not yet seceded, but were then contemplating the adoption of that extreme remedy, would probably have induced further delay; and the mellowing effect of time, with a realization of the dangers to be incurred, might have wrought mutual forbearance—if, indeed, anything could have checked the madness then prevailing among the people of the Northern States in their thirst for power and forgetfulness of the duties of federation.

It would have been easy to concede this point. The little garrison of Fort Sumter served only as a menace; for it was utterly incapable of holding the fort if attacked, and the poor attempt soon afterward made to reënforce and provision it, by such a vessel as the Star of the West, might by the uncharitable be readily construed as a scheme to provoke hostilities. Yet, from my knowledge of Mr. Buchanan, I do not hesitate to say that he had no such wish or purpose. His abiding hope was to avert a collision, or at least to postpone it to a period beyond the close of his official term. The management of the whole affair was what Talleyrand describes as something worse than a crime—a blunder. Whatever treatment the case demanded, should have been prompt; to wait was fatuity.

The ill-advised attempt secretly to throw reënforcements and provisions into Fort Sumter, by means of the steamer Star of the West, resulted in the repulsion of that vessel at the mouth of the harbor, by the authorities of South Carolina, on the morning of the 9th of January. On her refusal to heave-to, she was fired upon, and put back to sea, with her recruits and supplies. A telegraphic account of this event was handed me, a few hours afterward, when stepping into my carriage to go to the Senate-chamber. Although I had then, for some time, ceased to visit the President, yet, under the impulse of this renewed note of danger to the country, I drove immediately to the Executive mansion, and for the last time appealed to him to take such prompt measures as were evidently necessary to avert the impending calamity. The result was even more unsatisfactory than that of former efforts had been.