Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2

by Michael Burlingame

  When five days passed and the Sumter garrison still remained in place, the commissioners asked Campbell for an explanation. The judge consulted Seward, who assured him that everything was all right and that he should come back tomorrow. When Campbell returned, the secretary “spoke of the prospect of maintaining the peace of the country as cheering. Spoke of [the] coercion proposition in the Senate with some ascerbity, and said in reference to the evacuation of Sumter that the resolution had been passed, and its execution committed to the President. That he did not know why it had not been executed. ‘That Mr. L. was not a man who regarded the same things important that you or I would, and if he did happen to consider a thing important, it would not for that reason be more likely to command his attention. That there was nothing in the delay that affected the integrity of the promise or denoted any intention not to comply.’ ” Seward also reassured Campbell that the administration would not alter the situation at Fort Pickens. Campbell reported back to the commissioners that Sumter would be evacuated soon and that “no prejudicial movement to the South is contemplated as respects Fort Pickens.”49 (At that same time, Seward was telling William Howard Russell of the London Times that “nothing would be given up—nothing surrendered.”)50

  As Lincoln struggled with the Sumter dilemma, he concluded that if he removed its garrison, he could justify it as a matter of practical necessity while simultaneously asserting federal authority by reinforcing Fort Pickens. To take a hard line at Pickens would immunize him against charges that he had abandoned his inaugural pledge “to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government.” If, however, Pickens were not available as an offset to the surrender of Sumter, the evacuation of the Charleston fort would be tantamount to a formal recognition of the Confederacy’s independence. As March drew to a close, Lincoln, in a discussion with three congressmen, “gave it to be understood, in unmistakable terms, that even though the evacuation of Fort Sumter should be determined upon, the other forts yet in possession of federal troops will be held to the last. He furthermore hinted rather more plainly at the intention of the government to blockade the southern ports, and collect the revenue with men-of-war.”51 He explained to Congress several weeks later that the reinforcement of Pickens “would be a clear indication of policy, and would better enable the country to accept the evacuation of Fort Sumter, as a military necessity.”52

  Lincoln was right about Northern public opinion regarding the forts. A leading Maine Republican, Neal Dow, wrote him that “the evacuation of Fort Sumpter will be fully approved by the entire body of Republicans in this State—and I doubt not in all the country. It is undoubtedly a Military necessity; and admits of no question as to its expediency. At first, the suggestion struck us unpleasantly, but when we learned the actual position of affairs, we saw that the measure is inevitable, and is a legacy of humiliation from the last administration, which cannot be declined. We hope no such necessity exists in the case of Fort Pickens.”53 A wealthy New York Republican leader told Lincoln: “The public mind is fully prepared for the evacuation of Fort Sumpter—as a military necessity entailed on the country by the late Administration—the hopes once entertained of its being relieved are dead—& buried. It will be hazardous to revive them on an uncertainty. The relief of Fort Pickens & any other feasible effort to hold what is tenable would in my opinion strengthen the Administration & give courage to the Union men at the South.”54 Some “staunch Republicans” in Washington seemed reconciled to the abandonment of Sumter as long as it was “accompanied by the reinforcement of Fort Pickens, and a naval blockade of Southern ports to collect the revenues of the Government.”55 Similar word came from Illinois.

  The situation changed dramatically on March 28 at a White House state dinner, where Lincoln at first seemed in good spirits.

  Lincoln’s mood changed abruptly when Scott recommended that Sumter and Pickens be abandoned. Probably acting at the behest of Seward, the general said he doubted “whether the voluntary evacuation of Fort Sumter alone would have a decisive effect upon the States now wavering between adherence to the Union and secession. It is known, indeed, that it would be charged to necessity, and the holding of Fort Pickens would be adduced in support of that view. Our Southern friends, however, are clear that the evacuation of both the forts would instantly soothe and give confidence to the eight remaining slaveholding States, and render their cordial adherence to this Union perpetual.”56

  Scott’s recommendation shocked Lincoln, who convened his cabinet the following day. “I never shall forget the President’s excitement,” Montgomery Blair wrote. In an “agitated manner,” Lincoln read Scott’s letter “which he seemed just to have received.” A “very oppressive silence” prevailed, which was only broken when Blair remarked: “Mr President you can now see, that General Scott, in advising the surrender of Fort Sumter is playing the part of a politician, not of a general, for as no one pretends that there is any military necessity for the surrender of Fort Pickens, which he now says it is equally necessary to surrender, it is believed that he is governed by political reasons in both recommendations.” As Blair recalled, “No answer could be made to this point, and the President saw that he was being misled.” (Fort Pickens, unlike Sumter, was a mile and a half offshore and much harder for the Confederates to attack than the Charleston installation. In addition, it was well supplied and protected by a Union fleet.) Lincoln’s confidence in Scott was shaken, and from then on the general’s influence with the president waned. Seward’s credibility also suffered badly.

  The thought then arose that Fort Sumter could perhaps be relieved after all; maybe Montgomery Blair and Gustavus Fox were right, despite what Scott, Totten, and the other army men had argued. But if Sumter were to be resupplied, it would damage Lincoln’s credibility in the South, where newspapers as well as the commissioners proclaimed that his administration would abandon the fort. Seward’s misleading words to the press and to the commissioners were to have deleterious consequences.

  That night Lincoln did not sleep. The next day he confessed that he was “in the dumps,” and, according to Mary Lincoln, he “keeled over with [a] sick headache for the first time in years.”57 At a noon cabinet meeting, the president took Bates’s advice and had each department head write out yet another opinion about Sumter. The drama of the preceding night changed Welles’s mind; he now recommended sending both provisions and troops to Sumter and notifying South Carolina authorities of the decision. “There is little probability that this will be permitted, if the opposing forces can prevent it,” Welles speculated, but “armed resistance to a peac[e]able attempt to send provisions to one of our own forts will justify the government in using all the power at its command, to reinforce the garrison and furnish the necessary supplies.” He also urged that “Fort Pickens and other places retained should be strengthened by additional troops, and, if possible made impregnable. The Naval force in the gulf and on the southern coast should be increased.”58

  Similarly, Chase abandoned his earlier position and expressed himself in favor “of maintaining Fort Pickens and just as clearly in favor of provisioning Fort Sumter. If that attempt be resisted by military force Fort Sumter should, in my judgment, be reinforced.”59 Blair stated that he had “no confidence” in Scott’s “judgment on the questions of the day—His political views control his judg[men]t—& his course as remarked on by the President shows that whilst no one will question his patriotism, the results are the same as if he was in fact traitorous.” Sumter “ought to be relieved without reference to Pickens or any other possession—S[outh] C[arolina] is the head & front of the rebellion & when that State is safely delivered from the authority of the U S it will strike a blow ag[ain]st our authority from which it will take us years of bloody strife to recover from.”60 Bates favored reinforcing Pickens but straddled the Sumter issue: “As to fort Sumter—I think the time is come either to evacuate or relieve it.”61

  Seward had no allies except for Smith, who recommended
the surrender of Sumter but not Pickens. The secretary of the interior urged that the administration “adopt the most vigorous measures for the defense of the other Forts, and if we have the power I would blockade the Southern ports and enforce the collection of the revenue with all the powers of the Govt.”62 (Remarkably, Cameron was out of town.) So three favored relieving Sumter, two opposed it, one waffled, and one was absent.

  When the press reported that Pickens would be evacuated, Congress and the public were outraged. As Republican lawmakers prepared to return home and face their constituents, they called on Lincoln to inquire about his policy. Ben Wade exclaimed, “Go on as you seem to be going. Give up fortress after fortress, and Jeff Davis will have you as prisoner of war in less than thirty days!” In response, the president laughed. When the collection of revenues at Southern ports was mentioned, Lincoln conceded that he was, as he put it, “green as a gourd,” and had turned the subject over “to his attorney, Seward.”63

  The White House mailbag bulged with protests. “We (the people of the West) have accepted the evacuation of Fort Sumter as a military necessity,” a fellow Illinoisan wrote. “But you & your Cabinet cannot imagine our chagrin at the report of the probable evacuation of Fort Pickins and that a portion of your Cabinet with the Sec. of State at their head is in favour of peace and evacuation on almost any terms. It has taken us all aback.” This correspondent pled with the president: “in the name of reason and consistency don[’]t subject our country to another burning disgrace and shame in the shape of evacuating any of the Forts and defences without an effort to save them from that lawless rattlesnake crew.”64 An Ohio Republican who had served as a delegate to the Chicago Convention predicted that the “reinforcement of Fort Sumpter under existing circumstances, would secure to you an immortality of fame, which Washington might envy. The Surrender of Fort Pickens under any circumstances, will consign your name, and fame, to an ignominy, in comparison with which that of your immediate predecessor, will be tolerable, and [Benedict] Arnold[’]s illustrious.”65

  In late March, when Lincoln received word that the U.S.S. Brooklyn had sailed from Pensacola to Key West for supplies, he wrongly assumed that she had taken with her the soldiers designated to reinforce Fort Pickens. In fact, those troops had been transferred to the U.S.S. Sabine, which remained on station at Pensacola. Unaware of this important datum, the president concluded that his March 12 order had “fizzled out.”66 Therefore, it was imperative to launch a new expedition to reinforce Pickens. In case that could not be effected before the Sumter garrison ran out of food, it was also essential to prepare a relief expedition for the Charleston fort. So on March 29 the president ordered Fox to make ready a squadron for the relief of Sumter but to enter into no binding agreements. This did not represent a point of no return, for Lincoln and Fox both knew that if relieving Sumter should become necessary in order to vindicate the power of the government, swift action was necessary. By mid-April, the garrison would be starved out; in order to get provisions to Charleston before then, an expedition would have to be organized immediately. If, however, it turned out that Scott’s March 12 order to reinforce Pickens actually had been obeyed, or if the new Pickens expedition had reached Pensacola before the Sumter garrison exhausted its food supply, then Fox’s mission could be scrubbed.

  On the afternoon of March 29, Lincoln summoned Scott to the White House. In the course of their long conversation about the forts, the president said that “Anderson had played us false” and predicted that the administration “would be broken up unless a more decided policy was adopted, and if General Scott could not carry out his views, some other person might.” He chided the Hero of Chapultepec for not promptly carrying out his directive of March 5 to reinforce Pickens.67

  The president was not alone in suspecting Anderson’s loyalty. In October 1860, Colonel E. D. Keyes, who had served with Anderson on Scott’s staff for four years, confided to his journal that “if hatred and contempt for the people of the North and East, and especially the latter, and a boundless partiality for the South, are qualifications for a successor in command … [at Charleston], few better than Major Anderson can be found among my acquaintances in the army.”68 In late February, when Anderson notified Washington that he was running short of supplies and recommended against reinforcing the garrison, Joseph Holt wrote Lincoln a biting review of the major’s inconsistency. Holt noted that in late December Anderson had claimed that he could hold out for a long time and that reinforcements could be sent at the government’s leisure. The major then predicted that “we can command this Harbor as long as our government wishes to keep it.” In January, he continued forwarding optimistic reports, leading the War Department to postpone any attempt to send reinforcements or supplies but simultaneously to urge the major to notify it if any were needed. Although the major described the progress of the construction of batteries by the South Carolinians, he never indicated that he was endangered or felt the necessity for more supplies. The War Department understandably inferred from Anderson’s reports that all was well.69 In mid-March, the knowledgeable journalist D. W. Bartlett sensibly asked: “Was not Major Anderson perfectly aware six weeks ago that the batteries which were being erected at every commanding point in Charleston harbor would soon render a reinforcement impossible?” If so, “why did he not complain of the military works which were intended to compass his destruction and warn his Government in time?” Evidence was mounting, said Bartlett, “to show that Major Anderson has been playing a deep game for three months.”70 Lincoln found Anderson’s volte-face so peculiar that he asked Holt if “any suspicion or doubt had ever arisen in his mind” about the major’s loyalty. When Holt replied negatively, the president “expressed himself much gratified.”71

  Later, when hostilities seemed imminent, Anderson told General Lorenzo Thomas, “I frankly say that my heart is not in the war which I see is to be thus commenced.”72 He also informed Governor Pickens that “my sympathies are entirely with the South.”73 When Gustavus Fox spoke with Anderson on March 21, he became instantly aware of the major’s pro-Southern views. Montgomery Blair thought it suspicious that Anderson had not dismantled the fort’s flammable barracks and moved his men into the casemates as an attack grew ever more likely. (When the Confederates finally shelled the fort, the barracks were set afire by heated shot and explosive shells, which proved more efficacious than solid shot.) In May, John Hay confided to his diary that the “North has been strangely generous with that man [Anderson]. The red tape of military duty was all that bound his heart from its traitorous impulses.”74

  The ever-resourceful Seward, observing his plans crumble, frantically tried to salvage the situation. While maintaining his opposition to the relief of Sumter, he now recommended that Lincoln “at once and at every cost prepare for a war at Pensacola and Texas, to be taken however only as a consequence of maintaining the possession and authority of the United States.”75 (In Texas, the Unionist governor Sam Houston was resisting the secessionists, but when Lincoln offered to send troops, he declined.)

  Seward Sabotages the Effort to Relieve Fort Sumter

  Seward’s sudden concern for Fort Pickens was puzzling, since he had previously shown little interest in that bastion; at the forefront of his mind on March 29 was the Sumter expedition. How could he explain to the Confederate commissioners and to Justice Campbell that his assurances about the evacuation of the Charleston fort were false? How could he maintain leadership in the administration, now that the president had overruled him, with the support of a plurality of the cabinet? How could he prevent the outbreak of civil war? One way was to sabotage the Sumter expedition by stripping it of its key component, the warship Powhatan, which was to transport howitzers, armed launches, and hundreds of troops. That vessel, it was understood, was the only one in the navy capable of carrying out the mission. Perhaps Lincoln could be persuaded to send it to Pensacola rather than Charleston. But Welles would probably want the Powhatan for the Sumter expedition. So the relief of
Pickens must be undertaken without Welles’s knowledge. But how? Seward could argue that the mission must be kept secret, lest word of it leak out and impel the Confederates to attack Pickens before ships arrived to protect it. (This possibility was not great, for several Union war vessels were already in the waters off Pensacola, and Confederate forces were too weak to seize the fort. The Powhatan’s presence was in fact unnecessary; it was not even needed to cover the transfer of troops from shipboard to the fort. As it turned out, that was done on April 12, five days before the Powhatan arrived at Pensacola.) Therefore, only Seward, the president, and officers in charge of the ships and troops should be informed. This highly irregular proceeding would certainly offend the secretaries of war and the navy, whom Seward regarded as ciphers. So the secretary of state, desperately seeking a way to preserve his honor, his leadership position, and the peace, scrambled to implement this devious scheme. He would also try to convince the president to let him take charge of the administration.

  On March 29, Seward summoned his friend Captain Montgomery C. Meigs, an ambitious, vain, capable 45-year-old army engineer who was supervising the expansion of the Capitol and who had recently visited the forts at Pensacola, Key West, and Dry Tortugas, Florida. Alluding to the infirm, 75-year-old General Scott, Seward explained to Meigs “that he thought the President ought to see some of the younger officers, and not consult only with men who, if war broke out, could not mount a horse.”76 All along, Seward had been using Scott as his authority in arguing that Sumter should be abandoned. Now, with Scott discredited, the secretary needed some other military man to lend credibility to his strategizing. At the White House, Meigs confidently asserted that both Sumter and Pickens could be held. The danger in reinforcing the Florida fort was that Confederate vessels might intercept boats ferrying troops across Pensacola Bay. But, he said, if a swift warship were sent there immediately, it could protect those boats from Rebel attackers. (He thus supported Seward’s new plan by implying that the Powhatan should go to Florida and thus become unavailable for the Sumter mission.) When Lincoln asked if Meigs would be willing to take command of forces in Florida, the captain protested that he could not give orders to his superiors stationed there. The president said he would investigate the matter and let him know soon if it might be possible to promote him quickly, as Seward suggested. Scott, however, overruled the secretary, and Meigs agreed to join the expedition as a subordinate.