SERGEANT HART NAILING THE COLORS TO THE FLAG-STAFF, FORT SUMTER
Intense excitement in Charleston was the natural outcome of Anderson’s action, and the morning of the 27th the governor sent his aide-de-camp, Colonel Pettigrew, accompanied by Major Capers, with a peremptory demand that Anderson should return with his garrison to Moultrie, to which Anderson replied, “Make my compliments to the governor and say to him that I decline to accede to his request; I cannot and will not go back.” The governor’s messenger mentioned that when Governor Pickens came into office he found an understanding between his predecessor (Gist) and the President, by which the status in the harbor was to remain unchanged. Anderson stated “that he knew nothing of it; that he could get no information or positive orders from Washington; ... that he had reason to believe that [the state troops] meant to land and attack him from the north; that the desire of the governor to have the matter settled peaceably and without bloodshed was precisely his own object in transferring his command; ... that he did it upon his own responsibility alone,” as safety required it, “and as he had the right to do.” He added that, “In this controversy between the North and the South, my sympathies are entirely with the South,” but that a sense of duty to his trust was first.[170] The immediate result was the occupancy by the state forces, December 27th, of Pinckney and Moultrie; the seizure, December 30th, of the unoccupied barracks known as Fort Johnson, and of the arsenal, with its ordnance and ordnance stores, valued at four hundred thousand dollars.
The news of Anderson’s dramatic, bold, and self-reliant act, one for which the country owes a debt to the memory of this upright and excellent commander, brought consternation to the President and Secretary of War, who learned it through the indefatigable Trescot, who had, on the 26th, arranged for the three commissioners of South Carolina an interview with the President for December 27th, at one o’clock. The news of the morning brought a complete change of circumstances. A telegram to Wigfall was brought by him to the commissioners and to the Secretary of War, who at once went to the commissioners. Trescot was present, and could not believe in an “act not only without orders but in the face of orders.” Floyd at once telegraphed, asking an explanation of the report. “It is not believed, because there is no order for any such movement.” A telegram in reply from Anderson assured him of the truth, and a written report gave as reasons that “many things convinced me that the authorities of the state designed to proceed to a hostile act. Under this impression I could not hesitate that it was my solemn duty to move my command from a fort which we could not have held probably longer than forty-eight or sixty hours to this one where my power of resistance is increased to a very great degree.”[171]
[In January a futile attempt to relieve Fort Sumter was made by sending from New York two hundred troops in an unarmed steamer, The Star of the West, which was fired upon by the secessionists in Fort Moultrie, and, receiving no support from Fort Sumter, returned to New York.]
IV
THE FALL OF FORT SUMTER (APRIL, 1861)
Lamon’s[172] officiousness resulted in giving both to Anderson and to the Confederate authorities an impression that Sumter would surely be evacuated; hence Beauregard, March 26th, wrote to Anderson offering facilities for removal, but asking his word of honor that the fort would be left without any preparation for its destruction or injury. This demand deeply wounded Anderson, and he resented it in a letter of the same date, saying, “If I can only be permitted to leave on the pledge you mention, I shall never, so help me God, leave this fort alive.”[173] Beauregard hastened to state that he had only alluded to the “pledge” on account of the “high source” from which the rumors appeared to come, and made a full amend, which re-established their usual relations.
Anderson had informed Fox that, by placing the command on a short allowance, he could make the provisions last until after April 10th; but not receiving instructions from the War Department that it was desirable to do so, it had not been done.[174] He had already reported, March 31st, that his last barrel of flour had been issued two days before.[175]
Anderson’s little command, as he explained to Washington April 1st, would now face starvation should the daily supply of fresh meat and vegetables, still allowed from Charleston, be cut off. Being in daily expectation, since the return of Colonel Lamon to Washington, of receiving orders to vacate the post, he had, to the great disadvantage of the food supply, kept the engineer laborers as long as he could. He now asked permission to send them from Sumter; but the request, referred to Montgomery April 2d by Beauregard, was refused, unless all the garrison should go.[176]
April 1st an ice-laden schooner bound for Savannah entered Charleston harbor by mistake, and was fired upon by a Morris Island battery. Again the Sumter batteries were manned and a consultation held, at which five of the eight officers declared in favor of opening fire, but no action was taken by Anderson beyond sending an officer to the offending battery, from which word was returned by its commanding officer that he was simply carrying out his orders to fire upon any vessel carrying the United States colors which attempted to enter.
On April 4th Anderson assembled his officers, and for the first time made known to them the orders of January 10th and February 23d, directing him to act strictly on the defensive. As Lieutenant Talbot had just been promoted captain and ordered to Washington, Anderson determined to send by him his despatches. In order to arrange for his departure, Talbot, April 4th, accompanied Lieutenant Snyder, under a white flag, to call the attention of the governor to the fact that the schooner fired upon had not been warned by one of their own vessels, as had been arranged. It developed that the guard-vessel on duty had come in on account of heavy weather, and the commanding officer was consequently dismissed. The request to allow Talbot to proceed brought out the fact that orders had been received from Montgomery not to allow any portion of the garrison to leave the fort unless all should go[177]—which, however, Beauregard construed, for the benefit of Talbot, to apply more particularly to laborers and enlisted men[178]—and also that the following telegram from Commissioner Crawford had reached Charleston April 1st: “I am authorized to say that this government will not undertake to supply Sumter without notice to you. My opinion is that the President has not the courage to execute the order agreed upon in Cabinet for the evacuation of the fort, but that he intends to shift the responsibility upon Major Anderson by suffering him to be starved out. Would it not be well to aid in this by cutting off all supplies?”[179] Beauregard had, the same day, sent the message to the Confederate Secretary of War, with the remark, “Batteries here ready to open Wednesday or Thursday. What instructions?”