On the night of December 26, 1860, Major Robert Anderson, in command of the land forces, forts, and defences at Charleston, South Carolina, being threatened by armed secession troops, and regarding his position at Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, untenable if attacked from the land side, as a matter of precaution, without order from his superiors, but possessing complete authority within the limits of his command, removed his small force, consisting of only sixty-five soldiers, from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, where, at high noon of the next day, after a solemn prayer by his chaplain, the Stars and Stripes were run up on a flagstaff, to float in triumph only for a short time, then to be insulted and shot down, not to again be unfurled over the same fort until four years of war had intervened.
An ineffectual effort was made by Governor Pickens of South Carolina to induce Major Anderson by his demands and threats to return to his defenceless position at Fort Moultrie. President Buchanan, at the instigation of his Secretary of War, Floyd, was on the point of ordering him to do so, but when the matter was considered in a Cabinet meeting, other counsels prevailed, and Floyd made this his excuse for leaving the Cabinet.( 1) Fortunately, his place was filled by Hon. Joseph Holt of Kentucky, a Union man of force, energy, will power, and true courage, who, later, became Judge- Advocate-General U.S.A., serving as such until after the close of the war.
To the end of Buchanan's administration, Sumter was held by Major Anderson with his small force, and around it centered the greatest anxiety. It was the policy of the South to seize and occupy all forts, arsenals, dock-yards, public property, and all strongholds belonging to the United States located within the limits of seceded States, and to take possession of arms and material of war as though of right belonging to them. The right and title to United States property thus located were not regarded. Louisiana seized the United States Mint at New Orleans, and turned over of its contents $536,000 in coin to the Confederate States treasury, for which she received a vote of thanks from the Confederate Congress.( 2) All the forts of the United States within or on the coast of the then seceded States, save Forts Sumter and Pickens, were soon, with their armament and military supplies, in possession of and manned by Southern soldiers. At first seizures were made by State authority alone, but on the organization, at Montgomery, of the Confederacy (February 8, 1861) it assumed charge of all questions between the seceded States and the United States relating to the occupation of forts and other public establishments; and, March 15th, the Confederacy called on the States that had joined it to cede to it all the forts, etc., thus seized, which was done accordingly.
On February 28th the Confederate Congress passed an act under which President Davis assumed control of all military operations and received from the seceding States all the arms and munitions of war acquired from the United States and all other material of war the States of the Confederacy saw proper to turn over to him.
A letter from the Chief of Ordnance of the United States Army to Secretary of War Holt, of date, January 15, 1861, shows that, commencing in 1859, under orders from Secretary of War Floyd, 115,000 muskets were transferred from the Springfield (Mass.) and Watervliet (N. Y.) arsenals to arsenals South; and, under like orders, other percussion muskets and rifles were similarly transferred, all of which were seized, together with many cannon and other material of war, by the Confederate authorities.( 3)
Harper's Ferry, and the arsenal there, with its arms and ordnance stores, were seized by the Confederates, April 18, 1861, and the machinery and equipment for manufacturing arms, not burned, was taken South.
The arsenal at Fayetteville, N. C., was also seized, April 22, 1861.
In February, 1861, Beauregard ( 4) was commissioned by Davis a Brigadier-General, and ordered to Charleston, South Carolina, to organize an army. Other officers were put in commission by the Confederacy, and a large force was soon mustering defiantly for the coming struggle.
Beauregard took command at Charleston, March 1st, three days before
Lincoln was inaugurated President of the United States.( 5)
Disloyalty extended to the army and navy.