by Bruce Catton
The government did, at last, definitely wish to keep it. President Buchanan had finally notified the South Carolina commissioners that he could have no further dealings with them—except, of course, in their private capacities as gentlemen of high character—and orders were out to send the sloop-of-war Brooklyn down with men and munitions as soon as she could be loaded. Suspecting what was coming, the commissioners notified Buchanan that they were going back to Charleston, and they added coldly: “If you choose to force this issue upon us, the State of South Carolina will accept it, and relying upon Him who is the God of Justice as well as the God of Hosts, will endeavor to perform the great duty which lies before her, hopefully, bravely and thoroughly.” This letter went into the White House files with the notation: “This paper, just presented to the President, is of such a character that he declines to receive it.”12
Up to this time, most of the displays of public anger and determination had come in the South, and there had been little to show that the average Northerner either knew or cared very much what was up. Now there were certain indications. Major Anderson began to hear from people in the North, old friends and total strangers together, and he was getting letters of sympathy, stray bits of well-meant advice, offers of support. A bricklayer in Baltimore wrote that he had read of a shortage of workmen; if the major wished, he would raise a corps of workers “who would not hesitate to lay aside the trowel if it became necessary and help to defend their country’s flag.” A New Yorker suggested that “citizen volunteers” charter a steamer and go South to “rescue the garrison & save the Fort,” and Edward Hinks, of the Massachusetts militia, posed a blunt question: “In case of an attack upon your command by the State (or would-be nation) of South Carolina, will you be at liberty to accept volunteers?”13
Equally significant was a small ripple that briefly preceded Secretary Floyd’s departure from the cabinet.
Besides permitting the growth of a scandal over the dealings with Russell, Majors, and Waddell, Floyd had indulged in some rather free and easy actions in connection with the sale or transfer to the states of surplus Federal ordnance supplies. In substance, it was alleged that as Secretary of War he went to great lengths to put weapons in the hands of states that were about to secede. Later investigation would indicate that the amount of help thus given Southern states was greatly exaggerated, and apparently an important factor all along was simply Floyd’s old habit of slipshod administration. But there were a few cases that did have a rather sinister cast, and one of these involved the transfer of heavy ordnance from Pittsburgh to the Gulf Coast.
Under the prewar program, the government was building forts at Galveston, Texas, and on Ship Island, Mississippi. It would be many months before the Ship Island emplacements would be ready for guns, and the fort at Galveston was years away from completion, but late in October, Floyd directed an ordnance captain to send guns to both places as quickly as the Pittsburgh arsenal could deliver them. The shipments would be substantial—no Columbiads and eleven 32-pounders—and when the shipments were about to be made, late in December, the people of Pittsburgh learned about the deal and protested. The steamboat Silver Wave was docked, ready to take the weapons down the river; then the protest was raised. A group of citizens telegraphed Buchanan that “great excitement has been created in the public mind by this order,” and begged that the order be countermanded at once: “If not done we cannot be answerable for the consequences.” A delegation hurried to Washington to make protest in person, and Secretary Holt, who had at last replaced Floyd in the War Department, canceled the shipment.14
This meant little enough, except as a straw floating down the wind, in which capacity it meant a great deal. The people of Charleston had shown anger and bitterness earlier in the fall, when an attempt was made to move arms from the Charleston arsenal to Fort Moultrie, and they had blocked the move. There had been nothing especially surprising about this: the people of Charleston had been passionately stirred for a long time and everybody knew it, and their reaction might have been anticipated. But now the people of Pittsburgh were beginning to behave in the same way, blocking the shipment of guns from government arsenal to government fort. The proud and vigilant anger that was on display in South Carolina was perhaps infectious, beginning to touch the hearts of men, not only in the cotton states, but far to the north as well.
5: The Strategy of Delay
The New Year’s reception at the White House looked very much the way New Year’s receptions always looked. There were flowers and gay music, with well-dressed people moving up to give President Buchanan a smile and a hand-shake, each one repeating the formal “I wish you a happy New Year, Mister President”; and although the weather was bad, things seemed to be bright enough inside the mansion. But neither the President nor his guests had any illusions about the happiness that 1861 was likely to bring to the people who occupied this building, and Mr. Buchanan looked tired and unhappy, as if he had had about all the strain he could take. Mrs. Roger Pryor, wife of the fire-eating Congressman from Virginia, felt that “a gloomy foreboding of impending disaster” oppressed everyone, and she reflected unhappily that the familiar social world of the capital was having the last of its old get-togethers. So many people had already left for the far South, so many more would be leaving very soon: no matter what happened, the group that met here on January 1, 1861, would never come together again.1
As a harbinger of coming change, there was the improved morale of Lieutenant General Scott. Scott was in Washington now, and on New Year’s Eve he confessed that he felt more cheerful than he had been able to feel for a long time. A mixed policy of force and conciliation, he believed, was what the country needed, and this policy was going to be applied. A soldier could at last understand what was expected of him, and what was expected of General Scott—as President Buchanan had told him the day before—was that he would immediately move to put reinforcements into Fort Sumter.2
The steam sloop Brooklyn—up to date, as wooden warships were rated at that time, less than three years old, a 2000-ton, propeller-driven, ship-rigged craft mounting twenty-two 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbores and two rifled pivot guns—lay in Hampton Roads; and on December 31 Secretary of the Navy Toucey, after a conference with the President, wired the commandant at the Gosport Navy Yard near Norfolk to fill the Brooklyn with provisions, water, and coal and hold the vessel ready for immediate service. At the same time General Scott, also at the President’s direction, drafted orders for the commanding officer at Fort Monroe: 200 regulars, fully armed and equipped, and taking with them subsistence for at least ninety days, were to be prepared to embark on the Brooklyn as soon as the ship was ready for them. The move was not to be made just yet; the President had notified the South Carolina commissioners that he would treat with them no more, but he felt that the expedition should not sail until they had had time to digest this news and to make reply if they chose; but by January 3 the Brooklyn had stocked up at the navy yard and was anchored off Fort Monroe, ready for the soldiers.
Before the Brooklyn could sail, however, plans were changed. Buchanan felt that any officer who tried to take troops to Fort Sumter would need plenty of muscle, and the Brooklyn was a powerful warship; but Scott—reflecting, perhaps, on the impossibility of keeping the move a secret—concluded that it might be better to use a fast merchant steamer, which could possibly slip into Charleston harbor before anyone knew what was up, and so the Brooklyn’s orders were canceled. Instead, the side-wheel merchant steamer Star of the West was chartered in New York, 250 recruits from Governor’s Island were sent aboard, plus food stuffs and ammunition, and on January 5 this vessel headed out past Sandy Hook, turned south, and made for Charleston.3
But nothing that was ever done in respect to Fort Sumter went quite as had been planned. Shortly after the Star of the West sailed, the War Department got a message from Anderson, who reported that he was in pretty good shape; he believed that he could hold the fort against any force likely to be brought against him,
and “I shall not ask for any increase in my command, because I do not know what the ulterior views of the Government are.” Anderson added that the South Carolina authorities were busily putting heavy guns in battery to sweep the entrance to Charleston harbor, and he remarked that “we are now, or soon will be, cut off from all communication, unless by means of a powerful fleet which shall have the ability to carry the batteries at the mouth of this harbor.” This crossed a message which the War Department had just sent to Anderson, telling him that reinforcements were on the way and broadening his charter of authority: “Should a fire, likely to prove injurious, be opened upon any vessel bringing up re-enforcements or supplies, or upon tow-boats within the reach of your guns, they” [that is, Anderson’s guns] “may be employed to silence such fire; and you may act in like manner in case a fire is opened upon Fort Sumter itself.”4
This message did not reach Anderson, and he knew nothing about the relief expedition. His own message, however, gave the administration second thoughts. Scott telegraphed to New York to hold the Star of the West in port, but he was too late; the steamer was hull down beyond the Jersey highlands when his message arrived. Then the Navy Department sent new orders to Captain W. S. Walker, commander of the Brooklyn, telling him to put to sea and meet the Star of the West off the entrance to Charleston harbor. If he arrived in time, he was to have the merchant vessel return to New York; if there was any trouble, he was to give such assistance as he could; and if, on arrival, he found that the reinforcements had already been landed, he was to come back to Hampton Roads.5
Anderson was the only person who did not know what was being tried. The administration had done its best to keep the expedition a secret. The Star of the West was a vessel ordinarily on the New York-to-New Orleans run. She had been quietly chartered (for $1250 a day), and the soldiers and supplies had been put on board as unobtrusively as possible, and when the ship cleared there was nothing to show that she was not leaving on her regular run. But the news leaked out, as it was bound to do. On January 8 Governor Pickens, at Charleston, got a telegram from Senator Wigfall saying that troops were on the way, and on the same day a shore boat brought to Fort Sumter a newspaper giving the same information. Major Anderson and his officers read this with much interest, but were inclined to doubt the truth of it, the War Department’s message not having reached them. They noticed that there seemed to be a flurry of signals between Charleston and the outlying batteries and sensed that something was up, but they had no solid information.6
Meanwhile the Star of the West moved on toward Charleston, with nobody on board knowing anything about the interchange of messages, leakage of information, orders to the Brooklyn, or anything else that had happened since the ship left New York. Late on the afternoon of January 8 Lieutenant Charles R. Woods, of the 9th U. S. Infantry, commanding the troops on the steamer, mustered his men, issued arms and ammunition, and had everybody stand by. Around midnight the ship drew near the harbor entrance. All the harbor lights had been put out, except for one beacon on Fort Sumter itself, and the steamer drifted on the tide, “groping in the dark,” as Lieutenant Woods wrote, her own running lights extinguished, until daybreak. Then, as soon as there was light enough to see, the Star of the West crossed the outer bar and steamed up the main-ship channel.
Ahead there was a guard steamer, which hoisted red and blue lights, sent up rockets, and started back into the harbor. The Star of the West kept on, keeping as close as possible to Morris Island in order to stay out of range of the guns on Fort Moultrie. On Morris Island the ship’s lookouts could see a palmetto flag, but they saw no batteries there. The troops were sent below, an American flag was hoisted, and the steamer began to enter the harbor.7
On the parapet of Fort Sumter, Captain Abner Doubleday was on watch. Looking seaward in the half-light of a clear dawn he saw the steamer, studied it with his spy glass, identified it as an unarmed merchant vessel, and concluded that the newspaper story about the Star of the West must be true. And on Morris Island the South Carolina gunners—cadets from the Citadel, the state’s military college—saw what he saw, reached the same conclusion, and went into action. South Carolina had not been bluffing: if the discharge of one gun might start a war, here was the gun, shotted and trained toward the target. An officer gave an order, a gunner jerked a lanyard, and there was a stabbing spurt of flame and a sudden burst of smoke, with a dull report echoing out to sea across the empty mud flats. A solid shot went across the bows of the Star of the West, which hoisted a second, larger flag and kept on coming … and Captain Doubleday dashed down the stairway to arouse Major Anderson. The fort’s drummers came tumbling out to beat the long roll—that throbbing, stirring call to general quarters, which would be heard all across America during the next four years.8
Anderson came to the parapet and his gunners ran to their stations. On Morris Island more guns were firing. Their first shots were high. Then some gun crew corrected its elevation, and a shot came ricocheting across the smooth water, low and deadly, coming on business. It smashed into the side of the steamer just below the fore chains, narrowly missing a seaman who was taking soundings with a lead line. For whatever it might mean to the country, a steamer flying the United States flag and carrying United States troops had been hit by hostile fire.
Anderson’s men were at their guns, excited, jubilant with the release from tension, waiting for the word. The Star of the West came closer, nearing a narrow part of the channel where she would have to make a left turn and expose her unprotected side to the guns on Fort Moultrie, which could break her to bits. Major Anderson stood on the rampart, glass at his eye, studying—and thinking hard.
He had been told to defend himself if attacked, but he had no instructions governing a case like this. (They had been sent but they had never reached him, and the Brooklyn, delayed in her own sailing, had not been able to join the Star of the West: the major would have to make up his own mind.) If he opened fire, the United States and South Carolina would be at war.… An officer nudged him and pointed across the harbor: Fort Moultrie now was opening fire on the Star of the West, taking a few ranging shots, and the officer urged that the fire be returned. Major Anderson hesitated, plainly uncertain, an immense weight of responsibility resting on him.
Meanwhile, the skipper of the Star of the West had had enough. Fort Sumter was not opening fire, and the cross-fire from Morris Island and Fort Moultrie would unquestionably send the Star of the West to the bottom in short order. The steamer reduced speed, swung about in a tight circle, headed back for the open sea, and put on speed. Soldiers in Fort Sumter swore; at an eight-inch sea-coast howitzer, trained on the Morris Island battery, a gunnery sergeant stood with the lanyard in his hand, waiting for orders. And then, at last, Major Anderson made up his mind.
“Hold on—do not fire,” he said. “I will wait. Let the men go to their quarters, leaving two at each gun. I wish to see the officers in their quarters.”
Members of the garrison were disappointed and indignant. Captain Foster, of the engineers, ran down the stairs in open fury, throwing his hat on the ground and muttering something about “trample on the flag.” Among the civilians who were still in Fort Sumter was the wife of one of the soldiers, and she ran to a loaded gun and reached for the lanyard, crying that she would fire the gun herself. Captain Doubleday gently drew her away, remarking that she had a good deal of courage. “Courage!” she snapped. “I should think, sir, a soldier’s wife ought to have courage!”
The Star of the West went on out to sea, got past the bar, turned north, and started back for New York. The Southern guns ceased firing, and Major Anderson’s officers, stirred and resentful, gathered in the major’s room for a conference. Major Anderson asked for their advice.9
The moment of crisis had passed—and yet this crisis was permanent. Major Anderson had refused to blast a clear path for the Star of the West, but he still had his guns, he was the representative of a government whose flag had been fired on, and it seemed to him now tha
t he should close the port, refusing to permit any steamer to enter or leave or even move about from the city to the South Carolina batteries. He raised the point. This, some of his officers argued, would most certainly be taken as an act of war, as fateful as if he had opened fire during the past hour; on the other hand, it appeared that an act of war had already been committed, every day counted—for the South Carolina authorities would assuredly build more batteries and put more guns in position—and perhaps the challenge should be accepted at once. As a matter of fact, Major Anderson by now had just about ceased to hope that war could be averted. To a friend in Washington he wrote, two days after this, that although his own sympathies were all with the South: “I have lost all sympathy with the people who govern this state. They are resolved to cement their secession with blood.”10
In the end, it was agreed that Major Anderson should write to Governor Pickens and ask him if he had authorized his troops to fire on the Star of the West. If he replied that the action was official, then Fort Sumter could close the harbor. The officers went about their business and Major Anderson sat down to write.
Dating his note January 9, 1861, he addressed Governor Pickens with stiff formality: “Two of your batteries fired this morning upon an unarmed vessel bearing the flag of my government. As I have not been notified that war has been declared by South Carolina against the government of the United States, I cannot but think that this hostile act was committed without your sanction or authority. Under that hope, and that alone, did I refrain from opening fire upon your batteries.” Accordingly: would the governor disavow the things his troops had done? If not, Major Anderson would regard it as an act of war, and “I shall not … permit any vessels to pass within range of the guns of my fort.”
