D.C. BUELL, Assistant Adjutant-General.
FORT MOULTRIE, S.C.,
December 11, 1860.
This is in conformity to my instructions to Major Buell.
JOHN B. FLOYD, Secretary of War.
Doubleday, "Forts Sumter and Moultrie," p. 51.
Upon mere superficial inspection these instructions disclosed only the then dominant anxiety of the Administration to prevent collision. But if we remember that they were sent to Major Anderson without the President's knowledge, and without the knowledge of General Scott,[1] ] and especially if we keep in sight the state of public sentiment of both Charleston and Washington and the paramount official influences which had taken definite shape in the President's truce, we can easily read between the lines that they were most artfully contrived to lull suspicion while effectually restraining Major Anderson from any act or movement which might check or control the insurrectionary preparations. He must do nothing to provoke aggression; he must take no hostile attitude without evident and imminent necessity; he must not move his troops into Fort Sumter, unless it were attempted to attack or take possession of one of the forts or such a design were tangibly manifested. Practically, when the attempt to seize the vacant forts might come it would be too late to prevent it, and certainly too late to move his own force into either of them. Practically, too, any serious design of that nature would never be permitted to come to his knowledge. Supplement these literal negations and restrictions by the unrecorded verbal explanations and comments said to have been made by Major Buell, by his disapproval of the meager defensive preparations which had been made, such as his declaration that a few loop-holes "would have a tendency to irritate the people," and we can readily imagine how a faithful officer, whose reiterated calls for help had been refused, felt, that under such instructions, such surroundings, and such neglect "his hands were tied," and that he and his little command were a foredoomed sacrifice.[2] ]
[ [1]] "The President has listened to him [General Scott] with due friendliness and respect, but the War Department has been little communicative. Up to this time he has not been shown the written instructions of Major Anderson, nor been informed of the purport of those more recently conveyed to Fort Moultrie verbally by Major Buell."—Gen. Scott (by G.W. Lay) to Twiggs, Dec. 28, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 580.
[ [2]] In a Senate speech, January 10, 1861, "Globe," page 307, Jefferson Davis, commenting on these orders, while admitting that they empowered Major Anderson to go from one post to another, said, "Though his orders were not so designed, as I am assured."
[ CHAPTER XXV ]
THE RETIREMENT OF CASS