diplomacy rather than war which they expected would place in their hands all the government property in Charleston Harbor. On the very day of Anderson's strategic move across the harbor, three commissioners arrived in Washington for the purpose of negotiating for the peaceable surrender to South Carolina of all the forts and establishments. But the telegraphic news, which reached Washington with the commissioners, that the loyal Anderson was doing his part, met with such patriotic response in the North as effectively to interfere with the commissioners' plans. What Buchanan might have released to them under other circumstances, he could not give them after Major Anderson had taken steps to protect his trust.
Once within the fort, the Sumter garrison set vigorously to work to put it in a defensive condition. The Government work on the fort was not completed, and had the Southerners attacked it at once, as they would have done but for the expectation that the President would order Anderson to return to Moultrie, they could easily have captured it by assault. But they still hoped for "bloodless secession," and deferred offensive action. There were no flanking defences for the fort, and no fire-proof quarters for the officers. There was a great quantity of combustible material in the wooden quarters, which ultimately terminated the defence; for the garrison was rather smoked out by fire, than either starved out or reduced by shot and shell. The engineer officers were driven to all sorts of expedients to make the fort tenable, because there was very little material there out of which to make proper military defences. The workmen had left in the interior of the unfinished fort a confused mass of building material, unmounted guns, gun-carriages, derricks, blocks and tackle. Only two tiers of the fort were in condition for the mounting of heavy artillery—the upper and lower tiers. Although the garrison was severely taxed in performing the excessive guard duty required by their perilous situation, they yet accomplished an enormous amount of work—mounting guns with improvised tackle; carrying by hand to the upper tier shot weighing nearly one hundred and thirty pounds each; protecting the casemates with flag-stones; rigging ten-inch columbiads as mortars in the parade grounds within the fort, to fire on Morris Island; and making their quarters as comfortable as the circumstances admitted. The guns of the fort were carefully aimed at the various objects to be fired at, and the proper elevation marked on each, to avoid errors in aiming when the smoke of action should refract the light.
To guard against a simultaneous attack from many sides, against which sixty men could make only a feeble defence, mines were planted under the wharf where a landing was most feasible, to blow it up at the proper time. Piles of paving stones with charges of powder under them, to scatter them as deadly missiles among an attacking party, were placed on the esplanade. Metal-lined boxes were placed on the parapet on all sides of the fort, from which musketry-fire and hand-grenades could be thrown down on the invaders directly beneath. Barrels filled with broken stone, with charges of powder at the centre, were prepared to roll down to the water's edge and there burst. A trial of this device was observed by the rebels, who inferred from it that Sumter was bristling with "infernal machines" and had better be dealt with at long range.
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| HARPER'S FERRY. |
The discomforts and sufferings of the garrison were very great. Quarters were lacking in accommodations; rations were short, and fuel was scanty in midwinter. The transition from the position of friends to that of foes was not immediate, but gradual. After the move to Sumter, the men were still permitted to do their marketing in Charleston; for all that Anderson had then done was to make a displeasing change of base in a harbor where he commanded, and could go where he pleased. Presently market privileges were restricted, and then prohibited altogether; and even when, under the expectation of action at Washington satisfactory to the South, the authorities relaxed their prohibition, the secessionist marketmen would sell nothing to go to the fort. Constant work on salt pork, with limited necessaries and an entire absence of luxuries, made the condition of the garrison very hard, and their conduct worthy of the highest praise.
Anderson has been criticised for permitting the secessionists to build and arm batteries all around him, and coolly take possession of Government property, without his firing a shot to prevent it, as he could easily have done, since the guns of Sumter commanded the waterways all over the harbor. But it is easier now to see what should have been done than it was then to see what should be done. Anderson did not even know that he would be supported by his own Government, in case he took the offensive; and the reluctance to begin hostilities was something he shared with the leaders on both sides, even down to the time of Lincoln's inaugural, in which the President said to the people of the South: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors." The fact of Anderson's Southern birth, while it did not interfere with his loyalty, did make him reluctant to precipitate a struggle which he prayed and hoped might be averted. Had the issue of war been declared at the time, freeing him to do what he could, he could have saved Sumter. As it was, the preparations for reducing Sumter went on unmolested.
Instead of yielding to the demand of the South Carolina commissioners for Anderson's return to Moultrie, President Buchanan permitted the organization of an expedition for the relief of Sumter. But instead of sending down a war vessel, a merchant steamer was sent with recruits from Governor's Island, New York. The Star of the West arrived off Charleston January 9, and as soon as she attempted to enter the harbor, she was fired on from batteries on Morris Island. Approaching nearer, and coming within gun-shot of Moultrie, she was again fired on. At Sumter, the long roll was beaten and the guns manned, but Anderson would not permit the rebel fire to be returned. The Star of the West withdrew and returned to New York. Explanations were demanded by Anderson, with the result of sending Lieutenant Talbot to Washington with a full statement of the affair, there to await instructions. The tacit truce thus established enabled the preparation of Sumter to be completed, but the rebel batteries also were advanced.
Then began a series of demands from Charleston for the surrender of the fort. The secessionists argued with Anderson as to the hopelessness of his case, with the Washington Government going to pieces, and the South determined to have the fort and exterminate the garrison; and still another commission was sent to Washington, to secure there a settlement of the question, which was invariably referred back to Anderson's judgment.
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| MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. DIX. | GENERAL DIX'S FAMOUS DESPATCH. |
The winter was passed in this sort of diplomacy and in intense activity, within the fort and around it. The garrison shared the general encouragement drawn from the accessions to the cabinet of strong and loyal men, such as John A. Dix and Joseph Holt, to replace the secessionists who had resigned. The Charleston people continued their loud demands for an attack on Sumter. The affair of the Star of the West, and the organization of the Confederate Government in February, had greatly stimulated the war spirit of the North, and it was felt that the crisis was approaching. Charleston people began to feel the effects of blockading their own channel with sunken ships, for their commerce all went to other ports.
With the inauguration of Lincoln on March 4, the South learned that they had to deal with an Administration which, however forbearing, was firm as a rock. Indications of a vigorous policy were slow in reaching the anxious garrison of Sumter, for the new President was surrounded with spies, and every order or private despatch was quickly repeated throughout the South, which made him cautious. But the fact that he had determined to reinforce Sumter, and to insist on its defence, did soon become known, both at the fort and in Charleston; and on April 6, Lieutenant Talbot was sent on from Washington to notify Governor Pickens to that effect. This information, received at Charleston April 8, was telegraphed to the Confederate Government