The men were stunned, though not entirely convinced that Wigfall’s report was true. Trescot turned to Wigfall: “Well at any rate Colonel, true or not, I will pledge my life that if it has been done it has been without orders from Washington.”

  As Trescot said this, another man arrived: U.S. Secretary of War John B. Floyd. When told the news he also was incredulous. Trescot repeated his conviction that Anderson had acted without orders and again staked his life on it.

  But Floyd doubted the move had even happened. “You can pledge your life Mr. Trescot that it is not so,” he said, smiling. “It is impossible.”

  Trescot asked if he could borrow Floyd’s carriage and drive home to see if he had received any telegrams confirming the news. He returned with messages for one of the commissioners. “I am afraid governor,” he said, addressing Floyd, a former governor of Virginia, “it is too true.”

  After being assured that the source of the new telegrams was reliable, Floyd stood. “I must go to the department at once.”

  Upon reaching his office he sent a telegram of his own to Major Anderson. “Intelligence has reached here this morning that you have abandoned Fort Moultrie, spiked your guns, burned the carriages, and gone to Fort Sumter,” Floyd wrote. That he chose to use the word “abandoned” testified to his level of pique. “It is not believed,” Floyd wrote, “because there is no order for any such movement. Explain the meaning of this report.”

  * * *

  —

  Anderson’s reaction upon receiving War Secretary Floyd’s telegram can only be imagined. The major had long pleaded for orders of any kind. He had heard nothing beyond Don Carlos Buell’s verbal injunction to avoid conflict but if necessary to fight “to the last extremity,” and Floyd’s subsequent tempering of that directive. While Floyd was indeed embroiled in scandal at this point, that alone did not explain his failure to take control of the situation in Charleston Harbor. Floyd seemed determined to keep Anderson isolated.

  Anderson’s reply was crisp and immediate. “The telegram is correct,” Anderson wired back. “I abandoned Fort Moultrie because I was certain that if attacked my men must have been sacrificed, and the command of the harbor lost. I spiked the guns and destroyed the carriages to keep the guns from being used against us.

  “If attacked,” he continued, “the garrison would never have surrendered without a fight.”

  * * *

  —

  Now Anderson confronted the challenge of getting Fort Sumter cleaned up and ready for battle as quickly as possible. With the light of the morning, the sheer magnitude of that task became obvious to all.

  Fort Sumter

  Smoke and Cheers

  December 27

  It might have been dawn, but within Sumter’s fifty-foot walls, it could be hard to tell. The rising sun cast black shadows across the parade. “The fort itself was a deep, dark, damp, gloomy-looking place, enclosed in high walls, where the sunlight rarely penetrated,” wrote Captain Doubleday.

  A prime example of a sea fortress, Sumter was a giant brick pentagon built on an artificial atoll of rock in the middle of Charleston’s shipping channel, surrounded on all sides by water. The nearest land was Morris Island, three-quarters of a mile due south; Charleston’s famous Battery esplanade was three miles to the northwest. The rocks themselves compounded South Carolina’s resentment of the fort: These were Northern rocks, granite from quarries in New York and New England. The fort was part of a network of large coastal fortresses meant to prevent a repeat of the humiliation inflicted on America by Britain in 1814 when its navy burned the U.S. Capitol and the “President’s House,” as the White House was known at the time. Construction began in 1829, but now, thirty years later, the fort was still far from complete. By the time of Anderson’s move, only fifteen guns were mounted, though the fort’s design called for 120 more. Sixty-six giant cannon, unmounted, lay about the interior grounds like beached black whales.

  Here, too, were half a dozen temporary wooden structures, used as shops and storehouses, and all manner of rubbish: piles of brick, stone flagging, sand, and high mounds of oyster shells. When burned, the shells produced lime for cement. The fort’s wharf and esplanade, which surrounded its exterior walls, were piled with flagstone, sand, and twenty thousand bricks. The disarray made communication within the fort difficult, though it is likely the garrison’s twenty-five children found ways to use it all profitably.

  The officers, at least, could look forward to a fair degree of comfort once the enlisted men’s barracks were completed and all the soldiers and their families moved out of the officers quarters. The building had spacious, airy apartments, each with three floors and thirteen-foot ceilings, the top floor consisting of a single very bright room with windows on both sides but no masonry protection, apparently in the belief that in battle these third-floor aeries could be blown away at no great cost to the efficacy of the fort. The apartments had “water closets”—meaning bathrooms—and multiple fireplaces and large kitchens on the first floor. The water closets drained into the harbor. Tall windows overlooked the interior ground. The opposite walls abutted the exterior wall, or “scarp,” of the fort and were penetrated only by one-foot-wide apertures called loophole windows, three per room, that admitted a narrow shaft of light and a sliver of view. Known in fortress terminology as the “gorge,” this wall was Sumter’s weakest and least-heavily armed; here, too, as at Moultrie, the fort’s designers never anticipated having to defend against an attack from behind by a rebellious state. The kitchens were probably quite dark, since the only exterior light was admitted through three such loopholes. In two apartments the kitchens were even less convivial, given that they shared walls with two large magazines packed with nearly forty thousand pounds of gunpowder. Mercifully, the walls of these magazines were six and a half feet thick. “The quarters,” Asst. Surgeon Crawford wrote, in something of an understatement, “have a warlike expression.”

  The other four of Sumter’s five sides were designed to house the bulk of its eventual complement of heavy guns. Each wall had three levels. The first was the “casemate” tier, where guns were housed in vaulted, virtually bombproof enclosures and fired through arched openings in the walls, called embrasures. Guns on the second tier were similarly shielded and also fired through embrasures, but guns on the third tier, the “barbette,” or parapet level, would be positioned out in the open to fire over the tops of the walls. Both the casemate and top tiers were in good shape to receive guns and already held eleven large cannon. The second level, however, was nowhere near complete. It had forty-one openings in its wall, but none had yet been turned into a functional embrasure. Twenty were covered only with boards; the rest were open or haphazardly closed with brick. The problem here was that these openings could be readily breached by enemy soldiers bearing tall ladders, a battle tactic known since the sixteenth century as “escalade.”

  Most of the fort’s cannon were thirty-two-pounders, each with a muzzle bore diameter of just over six inches, capable of firing a solid ball weighing—no mystery here—thirty-two pounds. The gun could also fire explosive shells that exited the barrel with a lit fuse; for close-order battle, it fired “canister” and “grape.” A round of canister shot, consisting of a can filled with small iron balls, was meant to hit the ground in front of advancing troops and break apart, spraying the men with lethal bits of metal. Grapeshot consisted of iron balls in a fabric sack that ruptured immediately upon firing, essentially turning the cannon into a very large shotgun.

  At seventy-five hundred pounds each, these guns were not easy to lift into place. But the fort had cannon that were even heavier. The largest were the ten-inch “columbiads,” gargantuan weapons that fired cannonballs ten inches in diameter and weighing 128 pounds. The exact origin of the name “columbiad” remains a mystery, though military historian Emanuel Lewis, who also happened to be the longest-serving Librarian of the U.S. House, noted that a two-volume epic poem about Christopher Columbus, published in 1809, was entitled The Columbiad. Each of these guns weighed over fifteen thousand pounds, equivalent to fifteen concert grand pianos. Sumter had three such cannon. Anderson decided these should go on the fort’s topmost tier, but first came myriad other tasks, one of the most important of which was purely symbolic.

  At 11:45 that Thursday morning following the move, Major Anderson ordered all soldiers and loyal workers to gather at the fort’s flagstaff at the western end of the parade ground. The eight members of the regimental band climbed to the parapet above. At noon, garrison chaplain Harris, who came over that morning from his home in Moultrieville, offered a prayer of thanks for the safe transfer to Sumter and of hope “that our flag might never be dishonored but soon again float over the whole country—a peaceful, and prosperous nation.” The men removed their hats; Anderson fell to his knees, as did others. When the prayer ended, the major stood and grasped the halyard attached to the flagstaff. A sergeant did the actual raising, hoisting the flag hand over hand. The band played “The Star-Spangled Banner.” When the flag reached the top, the soldiers burst into a prolonged round of boisterous cheers.

  Anyone in Charleston inclined to disbelieve the news of the garrison’s move to Sumter need only have looked through a spyglass to find confirmation not just in the flag, but in the federal troops now grinning from the parapets. Sumter’s Pvt. John Thompson, an artillery man from Northern Ireland, marveled at what Anderson had done. “So completely did our Commander keep his own counsel,” Thompson wrote in a letter to his father back home, “that none in the garrison, officer or soldier, ever dreamed that he contemplated a move, until the movement had actually been made.”

  Thompson described Anderson’s coup with glee. “The consternation of the Carolinians may be imagined next morning when they observed Fort Moultrie enveloped in flames and smoke, and at noon saw the Stars and Stripes proudly waving from the battlements of Fort Sumter. What they feared, and endeavored to prevent, had taken place, and they had the pleasure of witnessing Uncle Sam’s troops in a position scarcely assailable in any other way than by the slow process of starvation.”

  Aware perhaps that this was not necessarily the kind of letter a father wanted to receive, Private Thompson sought to offer some reassurance. “You need not be in any unnecessary anxiety on my account,” he wrote, “for to tell the truth in spite of all their bluster I am almost sure they never will fire a shot at us, indeed I think they are only too glad to be let alone.”

  * * *

  —

  South Carolina’s governor, the newly elected Francis Pickens—pugnacious, with low-set ears and the face of a bar brawler—was furious. He felt betrayed. He had been assured time and again that Buchanan had pledged not to reinforce Sumter. For Pickens, as for many others in the state, repetition and distortion had turned Buchanan’s so-called pledge into a concrete, immutable pact. And now Buchanan had broken it, an act of dishonor.

  That afternoon, Pickens dispatched two officers to Sumter: his aide-de-camp, Col. J. Johnston Pettigrew, and Maj. Ellison Capers. Pettigrew, who was distantly related to the unionist lawyer James Petigru, was thirty-two years old; Capers was twenty-three.

  The men were brought into the fort and taken to Anderson’s office on the second floor of the officers quarters. Several other Sumter officers were also present, including Captain Doubleday and Asst. Surgeon Crawford. The Sumter men greeted the Carolina men cordially, but the two were in no mood for pleasantries. “Their looks were full of wrath,” wrote Captain Doubleday, “and they bowed stiffly and indignantly in answer to our smiling salutations.” Anderson invited the Southern officers to sit down. They declined. Their demeanor was almost farcically formal, especially that of Major Capers, a boy really, in an overly elaborate uniform with red sash and saber.

  Colonel Pettigrew began warily. “Can I communicate with you in the presence of these officers on the subject for which I am here?” He gestured toward the other Sumter officers. (Crawford reconstructed the conversation in his journal.)

  “Certainly Sir,” Anderson said.

  Pettigrew got right to the point. “The Governor of South Carolina desires me to say that he is much surprised that you have reinforced this work.”

  “I beg pardon Sir,” Anderson said. “There has been no reinforcement. I have transferred my command from Fort Moultrie to this Fort, changing my command from one post to another as I had a right to do.”

  Pettigrew bristled. “When the present Governor came into office he found an understanding existed between the previous Governor, and the President of the United States by which all property within the limits of our State was to remain as it was; that no reinforcements were to be sent here, particularly to this Fort.” The agreement, he added, also specified that “the state of affairs in this Harbor should remain unchanged.”

  “I know nothing of any arrangement between the Government and the authority of South Carolina,” Anderson countered. “I merely acted.” He explained that he moved to Sumter because Moultrie was indefensible and his position there was constantly threatened by Carolina troops.

  “How?” snapped young Capers.

  Anderson patiently explained that every night steamers full of Southern troops had passed near Moultrie, raising the fear that these forces would land behind the fort and occupy the sand hills that overlooked it. From there, a mere company of riflemen could take control of the fort, he said, and in a gentle jab at the young major added that this was something any man with a military mind would grasp immediately.

  “I removed on my own responsibility,” Anderson continued, “my sole object being to prevent bloodshed.” There was no malice involved, he said; it was his sworn duty to do all that was necessary to ensure the safety of his command. “In this controversy between the North and the South, my sympathies are entirely with the South,” he said. He turned to his own officers. “These gentlemen know it perfectly well.”

  “Well, Sir,” Pettigrew said, “however that may be, the Governor of the State directs me to say to you, courteously but peremptorily, to return to Fort Moultrie.”

  “My compliments to the Governor,” Anderson said. “I decline to accede to his request.”

  “Then Sir my business is done. Good morning sir.”

  And off he went, with young Capers in tow. Later that day, Colonel Pettigrew sent Governor Pickens a brief summary of the encounter. Its closing paragraph read, “I cannot express myself too favorably as to the impression made upon me by the soldierly, courteous even kind bearing of Maj. Anderson.”

  * * *

  —

  The secession-minded men among the workers at Sumter demanded to be released from the fort. The next morning, on Anderson’s orders, they were loaded aboard schooners and sent to Charleston. Over the next few days a total of 150 workers departed, for various reasons, prominent among them a wish not to be killed in the battle for Sumter that seemed certain to come. A loyal cadre of fifty-five laborers remained at the fort.

  Washington

  Blood and Dishonor

  December 27

  In Washington that Thursday morning, William Henry Trescot, the former assistant secretary of state, raced to the Senate chamber and told the news to two senators, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter of Virginia, or R.M.T. Hunter for short. The three immediately left and drove by carriage to the White House, where they asked to meet with Buchanan.

  The president walked in a few moments later, clearly nervous, according to a later account by Trescot. “I knew his manner too well to be mistaken,” Trescot said.

  Buchanan, profoundly unhappy at the prospect of getting bad news from the men, made some discursive remark about the U.S. consul in Liverpool.

  “Mr. President,” Senator Davis said, “we have called upon an infinitely greater matter than any consulate.”

  “What is it?” Buchanan asked. He stood beside the fireplace. His eye disorder imparted a look of particular wariness—chin down, face turned, left eye acutely focused.

  “Have you received any intelligence from Charleston in the last two or three hours?” Davis asked.

  “None.”

  “Then, I have a great calamity to announce to you.”

  Davis told him of Anderson’s move from Fort Moultrie to Sumter. “And now Mr. President you are surrounded with blood and dishonor on all sides.”

  As Buchanan listened, he broke a cigar into pieces in his hand, a habitual act that Trescot had witnessed many times in the past. Buchanan sat down. This news of Anderson had come on the heels of South Carolina’s secession and revelations of Floyd’s financial scandal. “My God,” Buchanan said, “are calamities never to come singly. I call God to witness—you gentlemen better than anyone know—that this is not only without but against my orders, it is against my policy.”

  So unlikely was the news the men brought that Buchanan doubted its accuracy. If true, he said, why had he heard nothing from War Secretary Floyd? He dispatched a messenger to summon the secretary.

  Floyd, on arrival, told Buchanan that no official telegram had been received by the War Department, and that his senior men doubted the report could possibly be true; Floyd added that he had just sent a telegram to Anderson expressing his incredulity. He had not yet seen Anderson’s reply.

  Buchanan postponed his planned meeting with the three South Carolina commissioners and called a cabinet meeting, an extraordinary and fateful session that would span, at intervals, three days and four nights.