THE FORTY MUSKETS
Like the commandant of Fort Moultrie, the other officers of the
garrison keenly watched the development of hostile public sentiment,
and the steady progress of the secession movement. Some had their wives
and families with them, and to the apprehensions for the honor of their
flag, and the welfare of their country, was added a tenderer solicitude
than even that which they felt for their own lives and persons.
Hostility from the constituted authorities of South Carolina or a
tumultuary outbreak of the Charleston rabble was liable to bring
overwhelming numbers down upon them at any hour of the day or night.
The special study of this danger, or rather of the means to meet and
counteract it, fell to Captain J.G. Foster, of the engineer corps, who
had been assigned to the charge of these fortifications on the 1st of
September. But his services were also in demand elsewhere, and for more
than two months afterwards the works at Baltimore appear to have
claimed the larger part of his time. On the day after the Presidential
election he was directed to give the Charleston forts his personal
supervision, and he arrived there on the 11th of November, remaining
thenceforward till the surrender of Sumter.
[Sidenote] Lieut. Breck to Major Deas, June 18, 1860.
In time of peace, the administration of military affairs in the United
States is somewhat spasmodic, resulting directly and unavoidably from
the fact of our maintaining only the merest skeleton of a standing army
compared to the vast territorial extent of the Union. As an incident of
this system, Fort Moultrie had been allowed to become defenseless. "A
child ten years old can easily come into the fort over the sand-banks,"
wrote an officer June 18, 1860, "and the wall offers little or no
obstacle." "The ease with which the walls can now be got over without
any assistance renders the place more of a trap, in which the garrison
may be shot down from the parapet, than a means of defense. To persons
looking on it appears strange, not to say ridiculous, that the only
garrisoned fort in the harbor should be so much banked in with sand,
that the walls in some places are not one foot above the tops of the
banks."
[Sidenote] Foster to De Russy, Nov. 14, 1860, W.R. Vol. I., p. 73.
By the 14th of November Captain Foster had removed the sand which had
drifted against the walls, repaired the latter, and supplied certain
expedients in the way of temporary obstructions and defenses which were
suggested by his professional skill, and available within his
resources. "I have made these temporary defenses as inexpensive as
possible," he writes, "and they consist simply of a stout board fence
ten feet high, surmounted by strips filled with nail-points, with a dry
brick wall two bricks thick on the inside, raised to the height of a
man's head, and pierced with embrasures and a sufficient number of
loop-holes. Their immediate construction has satisfied and gratified
the commanding officer, Colonel Gardiner, and they are, I think,
adequate to the present wants of the garrison."
Of what avail, however, all the resources of engineering science, where
forts were absolutely soldierless, and their walls without even a
solitary sentinel? This was the condition of Fort Sumter and Castle
Pinckney, after weeks of warning and positive entreaty to the
Government at Washington, by engineer, inspectors, and commandants
alike, all without having brought one word of encouragement or a single
recruit.
But though the President and Secretary of War neglected their proper
duty, Captain Foster did not remit his efforts. The exposed condition
of these two priceless forts was the daily burden of his thoughts.
Under Colonel Gardiner he had asked for forty muskets to arm his
workmen to defend Sumter. The engineer bureau at Washington, seconding
the suggestion, had obtained the approval of the Secretary of War, and
had issued the order to the storekeeper of the Charleston arsenal. But
when the matter was brought to the notice of Colonel Gardiner he
objected. He was unwilling that this expedient, of doubtful utility at
best, should serve as an excuse to the Secretary of War to refuse to
send him the substantial reënforcement of two regular companies and
fifty drilled recruits which he had requested.
[Sidenote] Foster to De Russy, Nov. 24, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 77.
[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 2, 1860.
[Sidenote] Indorsement, Dec. 6 and 7. W.R. Vol. I., pp. 83, 84.
[Sidenote] Wright to Foster, Nov. 28, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 78.
[Sidenote] Foster to De Russy, Dec. 2, 1860.
[Sidenote] Indorsement, Dec. 6 and 7.
It has already been stated how Colonel Gardiner, instead of obtaining
his reënforcements, lost his command, and as a consequence Captain
Foster's order for the forty muskets was duly put to slumber in a
pigeon-hole at the arsenal. When Major Anderson arrived and assumed
control he not only, as we have seen, repeated the demand for
additional troops, but recognizing at a glance the immense interests at
stake had himself renewed to Captain Foster the suggestion about arming
some engineer workmen. Captain Foster promptly made the application to
the department for permission, and soon after for arms. Permission came
in due course of mail; but by this time Secretary Floyd would issue no
order for the hundred muskets asked for.
[Sidenote] Foster to De Russy, Dec. 4, 1860, W.R. Vol. I., p. 85.
Nevertheless, the working party of thirty was quartered in Castle
Pinckney as quietly as possible, in order not to irritate the sensitive
Charlestonians, and the officers and overseers in the two forts were
instructed to sound and test the loyalty and trustworthiness of the
mechanics and laborers. Those in Sumter had been brought from
Baltimore, and in them Captain Foster placed his greatest hopes; but
they disappointed him. On December 3 his overseer informed him that
while they professed a willingness to resist a mob, they were
disinclined to fight any organized volunteer force, and he was
reluctantly compelled to abandon the scheme, at least as to Fort
Sumter. But he still clung to the hope that the thirty men sent to
Castle Pinckney, having been chosen with more care, might prove of some
service in the hour of need. He gave orders to his officers to resist
to the utmost any demands or attempts on the works, "Having done thus
much," he wrote to the department, "which is all I can do in this
respect, I feel that I have done my duty, and that if any overt act
takes place, no blame can properly attach to me. I regret, however,
that sufficient soldiers are not in this harbor to garrison these two
works. The Government will soon have to decide the question whether to
maintain them or to give them up to South Carolina. If it be decided to
maintain them, troops must instantly be sent and in large numbers."
Though neither Major Anderson nor Captain Foster could obtain any
official replies to distinct and vital questions involving the issue of
peace or war, a trivial episode soon furnished them a very broad hint
as to what the Secretary of War would ultimately do about the forts.
[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 20, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 100.
On the same day on which, the South Carolina secession convention met
at Columbia, the State capital, Captain Foster had occasion to go to
the United States arsenal in the city of Charleston to procure some
machinery used in mounting heavy guns. While there he remembered that
two ordnance sergeants, respectively in charge of Fort Sumter and
Castle Pinckney, had applied to him for the arms to which they were by
regulations entitled. He therefore asked the military storekeeper in
charge of the arsenal for two muskets and accouterments for those two
sergeants. The storekeeper replied that he had no authority for the
issue of two muskets for this purpose, but that the old order for forty
muskets was on file, and the muskets and accouterments were ready
packed for delivery to him. Foster received them, and after issuing two
muskets to the ordnance sergeants at Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney,
placed the remainder in the magazines of those two forts.
[Sidenote] Humphreys to Foster, Dec. 18, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 96.
Whether the vigilance of a spy or the subservient fear or zeal of the
storekeeper gave the Charleston authorities information of this
trifling removal of arms, cannot now be ascertained. The muskets had
scarcely reached their destination when Captain Foster was astonished
by receiving a letter from the military storekeeper saying that the
shipment of the forty muskets had caused intense excitement; that
General Schnierle, the Governor's principal military officer, had
called upon him, with the declaration that unless the excitement could
be allayed some violent demonstration would be sure to follow; that
Colonel Huger had assured the Governor that no arms should be removed
from the arsenal. He (Captain Humphreys) had pledged his word that the
forty muskets and accouterments should be returned "by to-morrow
night," and he therefore asked Captain Foster to make good his pledge.
Captain Foster wrote a temperate reply to the storekeeper, which, in
substance, he embodied in the more vigorous and outspoken report he
immediately made to the Ordnance Department at Washington: "I have no
official knowledge (or positive personal evidence either) that Colonel
Huger assured the Governor that no arms should be removed from the
arsenal, nor that, if he did so, he spoke by authority of the
Government; but on the other hand I do know that an order was given to
issue to me forty muskets; that I actually needed them to protect
Government property and the lives of my assistants, and the ordnance
sergeants under them at Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, and that I
have them in my possession. To give them up on a demand of this kind
seems to me as an act not expected of me by the Government, and as
almost suicidal under the circumstances. It would place the two forts
under my charge at the mercy of a mob. Neither of the ordnance
sergeants at Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney had muskets until I got
these, and Lieutenants Snyder and Meade were likewise totally destitute
of arms."
[Sidenote] Foster to De Russy, Dec. 18, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., pp. 95,
96.
"I propose to refer the matter to Washington, and am to see several
gentlemen, who are prominent in this matter, to-morrow. I am not
disposed to surrender these arms under a threat of this kind,
especially when I know that I am only doing my duty to the Government."
[Sidenote] Foster to De Russy, Dec. 20, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 101.
[Sidenote] Foster to De Russy, Dec. 19, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., pp. 97,
98.
According to his promise, Captain Foster went to the city on the 19th
to hold an interview with General Schnierle and "several other
prominent citizens of Charleston" on the subject of the alleged
"intense excitement" which was again paraded as a menace to induce him
to return the arms. If he was originally surprised at the reported
excitement he was now still more astonished to find that it did not
exist except in the insurrectionary zeal of those who were performing
this farcical rôle purely for its theatrical effect. A majority of the
"prominent citizens," who had been convoked as a part of the stage
retinue to intimidate him by the threat of a mob, had not yet even
heard of the affair. Detecting readily the sham and pretense of the
performance, he seems to have at least accorded them the merit of an
honest delusion. He quietly and politely explained to them the
regularity of his orders and proceedings, and the good faith of himself
and his brother officers. But he firmly declined to return the muskets
until he should be directed to do so by the Government. Yet willing to
go to the verge of his discretion to allay irritation, he agreed to
appeal immediately by telegraph to the Ordnance Bureau for a decision.
He had not long to wait for a solution of the question. The Government
was in all appearance deaf to the advice of its Secretary of State,
General Cass, of its General-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Scott, of its
Charleston Commander, Major Anderson, of its engineer, Captain Foster,
so long as the problem was the safety of three great forts. But when
the question became the possession of forty muskets, and the arming of
two ordnance sergeants, "men with worsted epaulettes on their shoulders
and stripes down their pantaloons" in the language of the Secretary of
War, that eminent functionary could sacrifice his rest and slumber to
the crisis. Captain Foster, who had returned from the city to Fort
Moultrie, was awakened a little after midnight to receive the following
peremptory instruction:
[Sidenote] W.R. Vol. I., p. 100.
I have just received a telegraphic dispatch informing me that you
have removed forty muskets from Charleston arsenal to Fort
Moultrie. If you have removed any arms return them instantly.
JOHN B. FLOYD, Secretary of War.
[Sidenote] Foster to De Russy, Dec. 20, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 101.
It was probably in no hopeful mood nor with enviable feelings that this
brave officer returned by telegraph the strict routine answer of a
loyal subordinate: "I received forty muskets from the arsenal on the
17th, I shall return them in obedience to your order."[1] The necessary
consequence he embodied in his report to the department on the next
day: "The order of the Secretary of War of last night I must consider
as decisive upon the question of any efforts on my part to defend Fort
Sumter and Castle Pinckney. The defense now can only extend to keeping
the gates closed and shutters fastened and must cease when these are
forced."
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[1] "Although this would place my officers and Forts Sumter and
Pinckney entirely at the mercy of any mob, I considered myself bound
as an officer to obey the order, which I did by the prompt return
of the muskets by 10 o'clock that morning."--Foster, Report to The
Committee on Conduct of the War.
END OF VOL. II.