The Fighting Over Fort Sumter (cont.)

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The Fighting Over Fort Sumter (cont.)
A duel of nerves, a crisis of allegiances.
The waiting game resumed and soon was directed by new players. Governor Pickens yielded military control of the crisis to the newly formed Confederate States of America in March. President Jefferson Davis put command of Charleston's defenses in the hands of Confederate Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard, a prewar U.S. Army engineer who had recently resigned as superintendent of West Point. Beauregard had graduated in 1838 from the academy, where Major Anderson had been one of his instructors. Now student would face teacher in a duel of nerves, directed by Northern and Southern politicians in the respective capitals of Washington and Montgomery.

Lincoln also took office in March, and Americans North and South waited to see how he would respond to the Fort Sumter crisis, knowing either peaceful secession or real warfare almost certainly would be the result of his action. Lincoln had been in office less than 24 hours when he received a dispatch from Major Anderson reporting that Fort Sumter's rations could not last even six weeks. Lincoln had a limited amount of time to decide whether to resupply the fort—an act of war to Confederate leaders—or order Fort Sumter's garrison withdrawn. The clock was ticking.

Lincoln was a plurality president, winner of most votes but still elected by a minority of voters, and he was also controversial—even in the North. Members of his own cabinet doubted his ability to successfully resolve the crisis. Although he had vowed in his inaugural speech to "hold, occupy, and possess," all property claimed by the Federal government, Lincoln seemed to be indecisive about Fort Sumter. The first time he polled his cabinet on the crisis, they voted more than two to one to relinquish the fort despite their commander-in-chief's inauguration pledge. Chief among the doubters was Secretary of State William H. Seward, a seasoned politician and the leader of the Republican Party. Dismissing the new president as a helpless bumbler, Seward independently opened personal negotiations with Southern leaders through an acquaintance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John A. Campbell, who was preparing to join the Confederacy.

The Confederate Congress had offered the Federal government unrestricted navigation of the South's section of the Mississippi River, seeking the Federal transfer of Fort Sumter in exchange, but Lincoln was not negotiating. He also refused to meet with a Confederate peace commission sent by Montgomery to Washington to work out a mutual agreement on "respective interests, geographical continuity, and future welfare of the two nations." To even hold discussions with Confederate officials, Lincoln argued, would undermine his position that the seceded states were still in submission to the Federal government. In an apparently well-intentioned attempt to rescue the inexperienced Lincoln from the crisis, Seward allowed Justice Campbell to assure President Davis and his Confederate cabinet that the Lincoln administration would evacuate Fort Sumter.

Lincoln appeared to be wavering. He openly mulled over a proposed deal in which he would abandon Fort Sumter if Virginia agreed not to secede. "A state for a fort is not bad business," he said. Meanwhile, keeping his options open, he ordered a flotilla of warships placed on standby for an expedition to forcibly support Fort Sumter. Confederate officials in Montgomery soon heard about the build-up. What was Lincoln up to? Would he let the South go peacefully? Would he hold on to Fort Sumter even if it meant war? Was he trying to maneuver the South into firing the first shot, hoping that would electrify war support in the North? Was he simply indecisive? Even today, no one knows for sure. The mixed signals confused the Confederate leaders, who seriously considered Secretary of State Seward's repeated assurances.

In late March, Lincoln quietly sent three emissaries of his own to Fort Sumter to give him a first-hand report on the crisis. One of his representatives, Captain Gustavus V. Fox, was a "war man" and former naval officer with high level political connections who had urged both Buchanan and Lincoln to forcibly resupply the fort. Fox managed to meet with Governor Pickens and wrangled a visit to Fort Sumter, where he met with Major Anderson and noted a likely landing spot at the fort.

Ward Lamon, another of the emissaries and a close friend of Lincoln's, also met with Governor Pickens. Introducing himself as President Lincoln's "confidential agent," Lamon discussed the logistics of evacuating Fort Sumter with the governor. By the time Lamon left Charleston, Governor Pickens was confident Lincoln would end the crisis by giving up the fort peacefully. But the third emissary, Stephen Hurlbut, returned to Washington with a perspective as gloomy as Fox's assessment. Hurlbut was an Illinois lawyer, Republican, and friend of Lincoln's who had been born in South Carolina, and after meeting with friends in Charleston, he was convinced South Carolina would never return freely to the Union—regardless of what happened at Fort Sumter. "The sentiment of national patriotism, always feeble in Carolina, has been extinguished and overridden by the acknowledged doctrine of the paramount allegiance to the State," he reported to Lincoln.

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