Coming Fury, Volume 1 (25 page)

To Major Anderson, meanwhile, had gone nothing much better than the expression of a pious wish that everything would turn out all right. From the adjutant general of the army, on December 1, came a message saying that the Secretary of War hoped all of the major’s actions would “be such as to be free from the charge of
initiating a collision.” If attacked, Major Anderson would of course defend himself as best he could. Meanwhile, “the increase of the force under your command, however much to be desired, would, the Secretary thinks … but add to that excitement and might lead to serious results.”
⁹

Major Anderson had at least been told that he could defend himself if someone started shooting at him, but he felt that the instructions were inadequate. He reminded the War Department that Fort Sumter was empty, except for the workmen, so that a boatload of militia could occupy it at any time. The South Carolina authorities, he added, were apparently beginning to think more and more about Sumter, and less about Moultrie, which was intelligent of them; once they had Fort Sumter, with its guns mounted and a proper garrison on hand, they would have perfect control of Charleston harbor, Washington could send in neither warships nor supply ships, and the garrison of Fort Moultrie could be driven out with great ease.

That Anderson needed better guidance was clear, even in the War Department, and at the end of the first week in December, Secretary Floyd summoned an austere and methodical officer from the adjutant general’s staff, Major Don Carlos Buell, and gave him a special mission of some delicacy. Buell was to go to Charleston and give to Major Anderson certain instructions, which the Secretary would now transmit verbally; they would amount to a broad explanation of general policy, rather than explicit orders, and much would be left to Major Anderson’s discretion—and, presumably, to the intelligence and fidelity with which Major Buell recited Secretary Floyd’s remarks. The Secretary would put nothing in writing.

Off to Charleston went Major Buell. He talked with Major Anderson, made his own appraisal of the situation, and finally concluded to do what the Secretary of War had refrained from doing-put the orders down in writing. To the best of his ability (and Major Buell was a painfully conscientious man) he drew up for Major Anderson’s benefit a memorandum of the verbal message which he had been given.

Dated December 11, this document began by reciting the administration’s desire to avoid a violent collision with the people of South Carolina. Major Anderson was not, “without evident and
immediate necessity,” to do anything that even looked hostile. At the same time, he was to hold possession of the forts “and if attacked you are to defend yourself to the last extremity.” The major did not, to be sure, have enough men to occupy more than one of the forts, but an attack or an attempt to occupy any of them he would take as an act of hostility, whereupon he could put his command into whichever fort he considered most defensible. Furthermore: “You are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act.”

When Buell wrote this out, he had become convinced that unless the government acted, Fort Sumter would very soon be seized, whether with or without the order of the state authorities, and the feeling unquestionably influenced him in his interpretation of the Secretary’s instructions. When he gave the memorandum to Anderson he said: “This is all I am authorized to say to you, but my personal advice is, that you do not allow the opportunity to escape you.” He made some further suggestions, “all looking to the contemplated transfer of his command,” and then went back to Washington, bearing a copy of the paper he had written. After reporting to the Secretary, he gave it to the chief clerk of the War Department for deposit in the department’s files.
¹⁰
Whether Floyd himself actually read the copy is a question; if he did, he quickly forgot about it, and he was behaving with uncommon fogginess these days.

President Buchanan, however, did see it, and one sentence bothered him. Major Anderson had been told that in case he was attacked he was to “defend himself to the last extremity,” and it seemed to James Buchanan that this was going beyond common sense. At the President’s instance, a letter over Floyd’s signature was sent to Anderson. The major was not to sacrifice his own life or the lives of his men in a hopeless fight; if he was obviously overpowered, he could bow to necessity and make the best terms possible—this would be the course of a brave and honorable officer, “and you will be fully justified in such action.” Additionally, the part of Buell’s memorandum which told Anderson he could occupy any fort he chose if he had reason to believe that he was going to be attacked was mildly qualified by the addition of the word “defensive” in the description of the steps that were permitted him.
¹¹

Whether anyone realized it or not, the administration had at last taken a positive step. Until now Major Anderson had been told nothing except that he could defend himself if attacked. Now he was given full authority to move from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter—not merely if he was attacked, but whenever he had tangible evidence “of a design to proceed to a hostile act.” Inasmuch as tangible evidence of such a design lay all over Charleston as thick as a winter’s fog, Anderson had in substance been told he could go over to Sumter whenever he thought best. What effect such a move might have on the hypersensitive spirits of the South Carolina authorities—who considered, mistakenly or otherwise, that they had the President’s word of honor that no such step would be taken unless they were first consulted about it—was left entirely up to the imagination of anyone who chanced to think about it. Major Anderson had his government’s written permission to take, on his own initiative, a step that might set off all the guns.

It appears that Major Anderson himself did not immediately understand how broad his instructions had become. A few days after Major Buell left him, Anderson wrote to a Northern friend saying that he did wish the government would send him clearer orders. Why would not Washington tell him to abandon Fort Moultrie if he had to? “I would rather not be kept here to ‘
Surrender
’ when a demand is made for the Fort. I don’t like the name of ‘
having surrendered
.’ No one has been, or could have been, authorized to give a pledge of what this state will do.”
¹²

Although he would presently see that the responsibility which had been given to him was almost fantastically heavy for one aging major of artillery to bear unaided, Major Anderson would not grow entirely discouraged. He was devoutly religious, and to a clergyman in New Jersey he wrote: “Were it not for my firm reliance upon and trust in Our Heavenly Father, I could not but be disheartened, but I feel that I am here in the performance of a solemn duty, and am assured that He, who has shielded me when Death claimed his victims all around me, will not desert me now. Pray for me and my little band—I feel assured that the prayer will be heard.”

He traced the difficulties of his position: Fort Moultrie was surrounded by houses, which helped make it indefensible; he could
not remove the houses until an attack on him had actually begun; and, anyway, he did not have enough ammunition to waste any that way. But he and his command would do their best, and he was proud of the men under him. “Were you to see this little band, to note how zealously they attend to any duty I require of them, frequently voluntarily engaging in some work which, they know, I wish executed, how entirely they refrain from drinking, you would see that they were men who in the hour of trial would do their duty—For myself I can say frankly truthfully that I have not had a moment of despondency—I feel that He who made me will guide me through any trials there may be in store for me.”
¹³

To an acquaintance in Washington, Anderson wrote frankly that he despaired of the safety of the Union. If South Carolina could go out alone, he said, he would not mind seeing her “make the trial of exercising her sovereignty out of it,” but he felt that this was a vain hope. “Other states will, however, follow her example and our glorious Confederacy will disappear from the galaxy of Nations, and be replaced by the uncertain lights of a milky way—Were it not for my trust in God, I would despair of extricating myself from my present critical position but I have no misgivings. He will teach me the way.”
¹⁴

The trials would be heavy, and matters by now had reached a point at which almost any accident could start a war. There was a sudden, ominous flurry on December 17, when Captain J. G. Foster, of the Corps of Engineers, present in Charleston to supervise the work that was being done on the forts, went to the Charleston arsenal to get some machinery that was needed at Fort Sumter. While there it occurred to him that forty muskets that were to have been transferred early in November had not actually been sent because of the uproar made at the time, and Foster had them shipped to Fort Moultrie. Since nothing that anyone did remained a secret in Charleston in these days, news of this immediately got around, and (as Foster might have foreseen) it raised much trouble. In Washington, Trescot got a frantic telegram announcing that if the arms were not immediately returned “a collision may occur at any moment,” and Trescot went to Floyd’s house, roused the Secretary from a sickbed, and had him send a telegram ordering the forty muskets sent back to the arsenal. The next day Trescot got a
telegram from J. Johnson Pettigrew, aide-de-camp to Governor Pickens. The governor was glad the arms were being returned, as otherwise there would have been great danger—and now it was imperative that there be no movement of troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter: “Inform the Secretary of War.”
¹⁵

Governor Pickens, as a matter of fact, had had his eye on Fort Sumter from the very first. He was inaugurated on December 16, and on the next day he sent a confidential agent—Major D. H. Hamilton, of the First Regiment South Carolina Volunteers—off to Washington to demand that Fort Sumter be given up. To spare the effusion of blood (said a letter which Pickens gave Major Hamilton for President Buchanan), it would be wise of the President to give the fort up and to let the South Carolina authorities take immediate possession, “in order to give a feeling of safety to the community.” As a parting shot, Pickens added: “If something of the kind be not done, I cannot answer for the consequences.”

Major Hamilton got to Washington, and Trescot took him to the White House, but his meeting with the President was not happy. James Buchanan felt that he had done about all he could properly be asked to do to keep the peace with South Carolina. He had been bitterly attacked in the Northern press in consequence, there was even talk of a Congressional investigation into his conduct … and, as Trescot hastily wrote to Governor Pickens, to press the Sumter matter now might drive him all the way over into the opposition camp. Pressured by Trescot, the governor withdrew the letter.
¹⁶

Trescot had judged matters accurately. When the news that Pickens had withdrawn his request reached the White House, Buchanan was in the act of composing a letter that, for him, was blistering. In it he informed Governor Pickens: “As an executive officer of this Government, I have no power to surrender to any human authority Fort Sumpter or any of the other forts or public property in South Carolina. To do this would on my part as I have already said be a naked act of usurpation.… If South Carolina should attack any of these Forts she will then become the assailant in a war against the United States.… I have, therefore, never been more astonished in my life, than to learn from you that unless Fort Sumter be delivered into your hands, you cannot be
answerable for the consequences.” The letter was never finished and was never sent. Dated December 20, it presumably was drafted before Buchanan knew South Carolina had voted to secede. It remained in the presidential files, silent evidence that even with a Buchanan in the White House it was possible for South Carolina to press her luck too far.
¹⁷

Governor Pickens, meanwhile, was on the alert. Reaching Charleston while the secession convention was in session preparing for its momentous vote, he sent an engineer officer to examine Fort Sumter in detail, conferred with a delegation from the state legislature regarding the necessity for keeping Federal troops out of the fort, and then, late at night, sent for Captain Charles H. Simonton, of the Washington Light Infantry, to give certain instructions.

The Washington Light Infantry was on duty patrolling the area around the Federal arsenal, to keep munitions from being removed. Now its duties were to be broadened. Governor Pickens told Captain Simonton that Major Anderson was believed to be thinking about moving his command to Fort Sumter. This, he said, must be prevented at all hazards, although an actual conflict should be avoided if possible. Captain Simonton was to take a picked group from his command, embark on a steamer that would be provided, and cruise back and forth between Sumter and Moultrie. He was to hail every boat that passed from one fort to the other, and if he found United States troops on board he was to recite his orders—namely, that a troop transfer was to be prevented no matter what the cost. If the Federal officer in charge of any floating detachment, having heard these orders, persisted in trying to go to Fort Sumter, Captain Simonton was to resist by force, sink the boat, and immediately occupy Fort Sumter himself. He was to use his own discretion in accomplishing the end in view.
¹⁸

Captain Simonton embarked his command and got down to it—and the narrowing-down process had reached its limit at last. The power to make the decision which everyone else had evaded lay now in the hands of two obscure subordinates, a major of United States artillery and a captain of South Carolina infantry. Each man had been given discretionary orders. Between them, they could say whether there would be a war.

Christmas Day in Charleston was rainy and disagreeable, but the rain stopped during the night and December 26 came in clear and sunny, with a pleasant warmth in the air. Having considered his situation in detail, Major Robert Anderson concluded that the “tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act” mentioned in his orders was as clear as need be, and he made up his mind: he would move the garrison over to Fort Sumter.