[ [1]] His policy, frankly written in a friendly letter to a prominent nullifier, could scarcely provoke the most captious criticism:
"You have probably heard of the arrival of two or three companies at Charleston in the last six weeks, and you may hear that as many more have followed. There is nothing inconsistent with the President's message in these movements. The intention simply is that the forts in the harbor shall not be wrested from the United States.... The President, I presume, will stand on the defensive, thinking it better to discourage than to invite an attack—better to prevent than to repel one."—Lieut.-Gen. Winfield Scott, "Autobiography." Vol. I., p. 242.
[ [2]] "All the lines of demarkation between the new Unions cannot be accurately drawn in advance, but many of them approximately may. Thus, looking to natural boundaries and commercial affinities, some of the following frontiers, after many waverings and conflicts, might perhaps become acknowledged and fixed:
1. The Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic.
2. From Maryland along the crest of the Alleghany (perhaps the Blue Ridge) range of mountains, to some point on the coast of Florida.
3. The line from say the head of the Potomac to the west or north-west, which it will be most difficult to settle.
4. The crest of the Rocky Mountains.
The South-east Confederacy would, in all human probability, in less than five years after the rupture, find itself bounded by the first and second lines indicated above, the Atlantic, and the Gulf of Mexico, with its capital at say Columbia, South Carolina. The country between the second, third, and fourth of those lines would, beyond a doubt, in about the same time, constitute another Confederacy, with its capital at probably Alton or Quincy, Illinois. The boundaries of the Pacific Union are the most definite of all, and the remaining States would constitute the Northeast Confederacy with its capital at Albany."—Scott, "Views," printed in "Mr. Buchanan's Administration," pp. 287-288, Appendix.
[ [3]] "But the ex-President sneers at my weak device for saving the forts. He forgets what the gallant Anderson did with a handful of men in Fort Sumter, and leaves out of the account what he might have done with a like handful in Fort Moultrie, even without further augmentation of men to divide between the garrisons. Twin forts on the opposite sides of a channel not only give a cross fire on the head of attack, but the strength of each is more than doubled by the flanking fire of the other."—Gen. Scott, in the "National Intelligencer" of November 12, 1862.
[ [4]] (As reference to the Government publication, "War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies," will be so frequent in the course of this work, and under its full title would require so much space, the authors have decided to adopt the simple abbreviation "W.R.," as above. Where the number of the series is not mentioned, Series I. will always be implied.)
[ [5]] We are indebted to Mrs. Anderson, not only for the correction of this error, but for permission to examine many private papers relating to Major Anderson's experience in Fort Sumter. It affords us the highest pleasure to add that though all her relatives in Georgia became secessionists, she remained enthusiastically and devotedly loyal to the Union, and that her letters carried constant cheer and encouragement to her husband during the months he was besieged in Charleston harbor.