EFFECT OF ANDERSON'S MOVEMENT.
President Buchanan Aroused.--Excitement in Charleston.--The
Situation at the Beginning of 1861.--Governor Pickens's War
Measures.--"My heart was never in this War."
Anderson's movement and the sudden uprising of the North put an end to
the mission of the South Carolina commissioners. Governor Pickens seized
Castle Pinckney and Fort Moultrie on the 27th, and the custom-house and
other United States property on the 28th. Before leaving, the
commissioners made a formal call upon the President. The latter expected
some apology or explanation in relation to the high-handed outrages
which had been perpetrated. Had they temporized, or even used
conciliatory language on this occasion, it is possible the South might
still have preserved the ascendancy it had always held in the councils
of the President. Fortunately, they assumed an air of injured innocence,
and required Mr. Buchanan to humble himself before them for the past,
and give guarantees for the future by immediately ordering Fort Sumter
to be vacated; that is, by surrendering to the State all public property
in Charleston harbor which had not been already stolen. For once, the
President, whose personal integrity was called in question, was
thoroughly roused, and made the only answer which suited the
circumstances. He ordered a man-of-war to proceed to Charleston
immediately, drive the State garrisons out of the forts, and take
possession of the city. He might, indeed, have arrested the
commissioners for high treason; but his Unionism was of a very mild
type, and far from being aggressive.
One of the commissioners, Mr. Adams, hastened to telegraph to the
authorities of Charleston, on the 28th, to prepare for war immediately,
as there were no longer any hopes of a peaceful settlement.
This dispatch caused a great uproar and excitement in Charleston. The
banks at once suspended specie payments. All was terror and confusion,
for it was expected that a fleet would bombard the city and land troops,
and there were no adequate means of opposing its entrance. Castle
Pinckney, indeed, might offer some resistance, but as it had been a
dependency of Fort Sumter, and unoccupied, little, if any, ammunition
was kept there. The governor rushed frantically down to Fort Moultrie to
hasten the preparations for defense. Non-combatants were urged to leave
Moultrieville at once. The laborers formerly employed by Captain Foster
were again hired by the State engineers, and were kept at work
thereafter, night and day, in piling up sand-bags to shield the troops
from the fire of Fort Sumter. The batteries at the north-eastern
extremity of Sullivan's Island, which were made up of a few old
field-pieces brought from the Citadel Academy in the city, were hastily
put in order to protect the entrance by that channel. As for Fort
Moultrie, before we left we had rendered its armament useless. At this
time the guns were still spiked, and the workshops in the city were
going night and day to replace the gun-carriages that had been burned.
In place of these, some of the guns and carriages were sent over from
Castle Pinckney.
No attempt had been made to fortify the Morris Island channel, and
vessels could enter there without the slightest difficulty. It took
several days to transfer the guns and make the preparations I have
mentioned. It follows, therefore, that if the Administration had acted
promptly, Charleston could have been taken at once, and full reparation
exacted for all the wrongs perpetrated against the United States. Why
this was not done will be explained hereafter.
Foster had not been able to settle with all his workmen, and the rebels
frequently sent them over under a flag of truce to demand their back pay
and act as spies. I was enabled through this channel to keep up a
correspondence with my wife, who was still in Moultrieville. I learned
all that was going on there, and took occasion to inform her that we had
no means of lighting up our quarters--a serious inconvenience in those
long winter nights. She purchased a gross of matches and a box of
candles, and had them put on board one of the boats referred to, in full
view of a rebel sentinel, who was supervising the embarkation. She then
requested one of the crew, an old soldier named M'Narhamy, who formerly
belonged to my company, to deliver them to me, which he agreed to do.
The sentinel stared, but the self-possessed manner in which she acted
made him think it must be all right, and he did not interfere. The box
arrived safely, and added very much to our comfort and convenience.
When the governor found that the spell of Southern supremacy was broken,
and that there was no probability that we would be ordered back to Fort
Moultrie, he was in a very angry mood. He stopped our mail for a time,
and cut off all communication with us. We were, of course, prevented
from purchasing fresh provisions, and reduced to pork, beans, and
hard-tack. Anderson was quite indignant at this proceeding, and again
talked of shutting up the port by putting out the lights in the
light-houses.
While the leaders in the city complained bitterly to the public of
Anderson for his perfidy in occupying Fort Sumter, they did not
hesitate, among themselves, to express their admiration for his
acuteness in evading the dangers and difficulties which surrounded him,
and for the skillful manner in which he had accomplished it.
Our life now proved to be one of great hardship. Captain Seymour and
myself were the only officers for duty as officers of the day,
Lieutenant Davis and Lieutenant Hall serving under us as officers of the
guard. The situation required constant vigilance. Lieutenant Talbot,
being a great sufferer from lung-disease, was unable to do this kind of
duty. We were, therefore, very busy during the day superintending
measures for defense, and were obliged to be on the alert, and wide
awake every other night, so that we were completely exhausted in a
short time. Assistant-surgeon Crawford, having no sick in hospital,
generously offered to do duty as officer of the day, and his offer was
gladly accepted. The two young engineer officers, Snyder and Meade, were
also willing to serve as line officers; but Captain Foster thought it
was contrary to precedent, and they were not detailed.
As the Engineer department is regarded in this country as the highest
branch of the military service, and as its officers are really very able
men, I can not conceive what induced them to build Fort Sumter without
any flanking defenses whatever, and without fire-proof quarters for the
officers. The first defect I endeavored to remedy by projecting
iron-plated, bullet-proof galleries over the angles of the parapet. I
left small trap-doors in the bottom of these, for the purpose of
throwing down shells on the heads of any party below attempting to force
an entrance through the embrasures. The other defect--the presence of so
much combustible matter in the quarters--it was impossible to remedy,
and it ultimately cost the loss of the fort. The excuse that it never
could have been anticipated that the fort would be attacked from the
land side is hardly a valid one, for a foreign fleet might possibly
have effected a landing on Morris Island; or they might have set fire to
the quarters from the decks of the vessels by means of incendiary
shells.
As may well be supposed, there was a great deal of excitement in New
York in relation to us; and, in view of the small number of men
available for service in the regular army, three of the principal
citizens, James A. Hamilton, Moses H. Grinnell, and I.E. Williams,
offered, at their own expense, about the last of December, to send us
four hundred picked artillerists from the citizen soldiery of the city;
but General Scott refused to entertain the proposition.
On the 1st of January, 1861, we took an account of our resources, and
found we had but one month's supply of fuel for cooking purposes, but
few candles, and no soap. There was, however, a small light-house inside
the fort, and we found a little oil stored there.
It seemed to me that the time had now come when forbearance ceased to be
a virtue. Even our opponents were willing to acknowledge that we
represented a legitimate government, and that both duty and propriety
called upon us to resist the numerous war measures which the governor of
South Carolina had inaugurated. He had taken forcible possession of two
United States forts, of the money in the custom-house, of the
custom-house itself, and of other national property in Charleston. He
had closed the harbor, by destroying the costly prismatic lenses in the
light-houses, and by withdrawing the warning light-ship from Rattlesnake
Shoal. He had cut off all communication between us and the city, and had
seized the United States mails. His steamboats, laden with war material
to be used in erecting batteries against us, were allowed to pass and
repass Fort Sumter, not only without opposition, but without even a
protest. Worse than all, he had commenced imprisoning the crews of
merchant vessels for contumacy in refusing to acknowledge his authority
as the head of an independent nation. In vain did these vessels reverse
their flags in a mute appeal to us to use our guns in their defense.
Anderson would do nothing--not even send a communication to the governor
on the subject, although the latter, without authority from the State
Legislature, was thus wielding all the powers of a military dictator.
The enemy were greatly emboldened at our weakness or timidity, and with
good reason, for they saw us stand by with folded arms, and allow
steamboat loads of ammunition and war material to pass us, on their way
to Morris Island, to be used in the erection and arming of batteries to
prevent any United States vessels from coming to our assistance.
Major Anderson was neither timid nor irresolute, and he was fully aware
of his duties and responsibilities. Unfortunately, he desired not only
to save the Union, but to save slavery with it. Without this, he
considered the contest as hopeless. In this spirit he submitted to every
thing, and delayed all action in the expectation that Congress would
make some new and more binding compromise which would restore peace to
the country. He could not read the signs of the times, and see that the
conscience of the nation and the progress of civilization had already
doomed slavery to destruction. If he had taken this view of the
situation, he would have made more strenuous efforts to hold on to the
harbor of Charleston, and the one hundred and twenty millions of
dollars, more or less, spent to regain it might still have formed part
of the national treasury.
The applause which, both in the North and South, greeted his masterly
movement of the 26th of December, made him feel more like an arbiter
between two contending nations than a simple soldier engaged in
carrying out the instructions of his superiors. To show the spirit in
which he acted, it is only necessary to quote from his letter to
Governor Pickens while the rebellion was still pending. He wrote: "My
dear Governor, my heart was never in this war." This sentiment was
repeated by him in letters to other parties, and, strange to say, was
actually sent in the form of an official communication to the
adjutant-general of the army.
The difficulties he experienced in his unavailing attempts to defer
hostilities seriously impaired his health and spirits, and ultimately
brought on the disease which kept him almost entirely out of service
during the remainder of the war, and in all probability hastened his
death.
However much I differed from him in regard to his pro-slavery
sentiments, I take pleasure in stating that, aside from his political
career, the graces of his private life were such as to win the esteem
and regard of all who knew him.