 Prior to 1865, the governor of South Carolina was not decided by popular vote, but was instead appointed by the legislature. In South Carolina, prior to the Civil War, the governor held very little power. Most of the power resided with the legislature, and the most notable responsibility was over the state militia, which typically amounted to very little significance. The position was more ceremonial than anything else, it was given to somebody largely as a means of honoring them without handing them any significant authority. But when Francis W. Pickens was appointed governor in 1860, he was launched into a very significant role. He took the office of governor on December 14th, 1860. On December 20th, South Carolina seceded. Suddenly, the authority over the state militia held a great deal of significance, especially with the United States troops garrisoning Fort Moultrie, which was on the Charleston coast. But with South Carolina officially an independent nation, Governor Pickens also took on all the executive powers that normally would have rested with the national government, such as diplomacy. When South Carolina seceded, its political leaders fully expected other slave states to follow its lead, and it was already preparing its proposal to form a confederacy of slave states. But on December 20th, this was still just optimism. South Carolina was effectively its own nation for nearly a month. With the issue of Sullivan's Island, where a number of forts were standing, Governor Pickens was the executive that would have to negotiate with President James Buchanan over the peaceful acquisition of United States property, if the forts even were U.S. property, which some South Carolinians believed was not the case, or potentially wage war with a much larger hostile nation if they refused to recognize the session. The history of the Civil War usually begins with the bombardment of Fort Sumter, but this ignores the significant history of everything that took place in the months prior. Among these events are the tense weeks that South Carolina stood alone against the United States. I'm Chris Calton, and this is the Mises Institute podcast, Historical Controversies. Although there are other events that I plan to cover before we get to the bombardment of Fort Sumter, such as the Corwin Amendment and the forming of the Confederate government, today's episode may be seen as part one of the Fort Sumter story. Even before the election of 1860, the issue of the forts off of Charleston Harbor would be in the minds of people in South Carolina, and many people expected the resolution of this dispute to be the deciding factor in whether the United States went to war with the seceding states, or if they would be allowed to peacefully separate, and ultimately of course this would be the case, though it should not be seen as an inevitability. This issue at first was not Fort Sumter, though as I already briefly mentioned, it was Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island. The island was a vacation spot for many Charlestonians, and had a hotel called Moultrie House that was built at one end of a row of small cottages known as Moultrieville. It was a luxury hotel that wealthy citizens stayed in during summer vacations. Fort Moultrie actually served as an attraction for vacationers who would visit the garrison to listen to the band play in the evening. This was actually a common view of federal fortifications during this time period, that they were attractions for people to visit. If you've ever read Edgar Allen Poe's story, The Gold Bug, it is set on Sullivan's Island, which the writer was very familiar with from his time in the army, which he joined in 1827 at the age of 18. It's interesting to note that you were actually legally required to be 21 to join the military at the time, but Poe fudged his age on the advice of a recruiter, which was pretty easy to do in the age before birth certificates. While in the military, Poe spent some time in the Fort Moultrie Garrison, but that's just an interesting aside, as he was there many years before 1860. Poe was long dead by the Civil War, in fact. But the US military in 1860 was relatively small, and most of the troops who were in service were stationed in the west, so the Garrison at Fort Moultrie was modest. It wasn't uncommon for enlisted men to live there with their wives and children in the fort, in fact, which gives you an idea of the expectations regarding any kind of incident. The officers often lived outside the fort itself, usually also with a wife and children if they had them. This was the case for the highest ranking officer stationed at Fort Moultrie in 1860, Lieutenant Colonel John Lane Gardner, who is 67 years old. It was pretty common for army officers to stay in their positions well past the point of usefulness. There was no military retirement plan in those days, and promotions were based on tenure, so officers stayed in the army, held on to their positions, and often wouldn't leave until the day they died. This also served as a barrier for promotion of younger officers who couldn't get the promotion they felt they deserved until a superior officer vacated one way or another, so Gardner was pretty much just signed out. One of his subordinate officers wrote that Gardner was, quote, utterly incompetent to command a post under the most favorable circumstances, end quote. There were two companies under Gardner, Company E and Company H. Company E was part of the first artillery regiment, and it provides a pretty typical example of an artillery company at the time. It contained 32 men, including its lower officers, the company Musician, which was a drummer, and two artificers who specialized in building carriages for artillery guns. The majority of the men in Company E were foreign born, England, Scotland, Germany, so on. And they ranged in age from 21 to 42. I'm giving you all this info, by the way, so you can visualize how different the military looked in 1860. Most of them were in their late 20s, serving five-year contracts. There were five line officers at Fort Maltry serving under the useless Lieutenant Colonel Gardner. Captain Abner Doubleday was in charge of Company E, with Lieutenant Jefferson C. Davis serving directly under them. Both of these men are worth some small explanatory asides, I think. Abner Doubleday is most famous today as the inventor of baseball, and the Baseball Hall of Fame is located in his hometown of Cooperstown, New York. However, I think the notion that Doubleday was the inventor of baseball is not widely held any longer, but I could be wrong about that. When I was a kid, I was really into baseball and baseball history, and I remember reading all about how Doubleday invented baseball. So it's a myth that has continued at least up into recent history, though I don't know how widely it circulated anymore. But it's a myth. It was a fabrication created after Doubleday's death by some people who wanted to brand baseball as the American pastime. So it was basically a marketing scheme. Doubleday never actually claimed himself to be the inventor of baseball. It was the claim by people who came after him. Doubleday also happened to be the only officer at Fort Sumter during the bombardment, who was not at least somewhat sympathetic to the South. He detested slavery and he supported the Republican Party, but most of the troops at Moultrie and later Sumter at least had some Southern sympathies. One of them, the assistant surgeon, was Samuel Crawford, who wrote the first history of the bombardment of Sumter, titled The Genesis of the Civil War, which was published in 1887, but was based in part on his personal diary he kept during his enlistment. But Crawford, on the day of Lincoln's inauguration, wrote, quote, The South in her position stands by the Constitution, which in spirit and in letter has been violated by the aggressive power now in power, end quote. So this was closer to the general sentiment of the troops at Sumter than Doubleday's position, though most of the troops probably fell somewhere in between them. But Doubleday in any case did not invent baseball and he was the only ardent supporter of the Republicans and opponent to slavery in the fort when it was finally bombarded. Jefferson C. Davis is only worth mentioning to clarify that this is a completely different figure than the man who would become the president of the Confederacy, obviously. He didn't have any objection to slavery like Doubleday did, but he was an absolute enemy of secession. During the war, he was the obvious subject of many jokes about his name. He also brought his sister to Charleston with him when he returned from leave in October of 1860 and she enrolled in a Charleston girl's school. This shows, on the one hand, that he didn't have any real antipathy toward the South and, two, he might have been a little politically naive, considering his timing with all this. The issue of the federal force was already pretty well acknowledged in Charleston before October, so it seems unwise of him to settle his sister in Charleston. I don't know what came of her, though. Southern chivalry typically showed deference to white women, though if you remember the way this was used against Southerners in the Kansas episode, so she was probably much safer than she would have been if she were a man, but this is just speculation on my part. I have no idea what she did after secession. Company H was led by Captain Truman Seymour, who was one of the few men stationed there to be born and raised in the North. Remember that most of the men weren't born in the United States at all. Seymour's second in command was Lieutenant Theodore Talbot. This was the guy I quoted earlier who called a Lieutenant Colonel Gardner incompetent, by the way. Talbot, interestingly, was with John C. Formont during his escapades in the Rocky Mountains that I talked about briefly in the California Gold Rush episode. The fifth line officer at the fort was Lieutenant Norman Hall, who was only 23 years old. Being the youngest officer, he was put in charge of the least desirable jobs. He was the garrison quartermaster and commissary officer. The quartermaster would see the supplies in the fort, being housing, clothes, fuel, stationery for the men to write home with and other mundane matters. And the commissary was responsible for food, which would take on a great deal more importance after the men were cut off from new supplies in Fort Sumter and would nearly be starved out. There were others at Fort Moultrie as well, of course. There was a band I mentioned earlier that visitors like to listen to in the evening for entertainment. There were medical staff, cooks, a chaplain, the chaplain's wife. There were also black servants, at least one of whom was a slave, though the officers didn't know this. He was paid like the other servants, but his income was forked over to his owner. Just to give some more perspective of how this related back to Charleston and South Carolina as an independent nation, there were four forts off the Charleston coast. Across from Moultrie on the other side of the harbor was Fort Johnson. It did not contain a garrison, but Moultrie did house its coal supply there. Another fortification near Charleston was Castle Pinkney, which was built as the final defense of Charleston in case an attacking army got past Moultrie and Sumter. It housed a single ordinance officer, his wife and their daughter. All three of these forts had originally been built by South Carolina, not the national government, but they were expensive to deal with, so the state handed them over to the United States government in the early 19th century. It also ceded the land on which the United States government did build Fort Sumter. After secession, political leaders in South Carolina would claim that they never actually gave the forts of the land to the United States. They only loaned it to them. The reality is that this distinction probably wasn't fleshed out when the deal was made, but since Lincoln would eventually refuse to let members of his cabinet even meet with Confederate representatives, because this would be tacit recognition of the legitimacy of secession in Lincoln's view, the dispute never even got an attempt to be hashed out peacefully. But this is just the background that I think is useful to contextualize the situation for South Carolina and the United States just before secession and up to the point of the formation of the Confederacy. Even before the election, there were people around Charleston who were getting ready for secession and their eyes were on the garrison at Moultrie. In August of 1860, Captain John Foster was sent to make improvements to Fort Moultrie. The reason given for this decision to double day was that the United States was worried about possible conflicts with England and France in regards to Mexico, but even double day found this to be a flimsy reason. Double day wasn't the only one who thought that the timing was suspicious either. As the election drew close, Charlestonians were paying attention to the work being done at Moultrie. On November 3rd, a rally of secessionists wearing blue cockades on their hats marched into Moultrie to inspect the work being done. It hardly needs to be said that this made the garrison uncomfortable. Shortly before this, the engineer in charge of the improvements, Lieutenant Snyder, noticed that some of the laborers hired to work on the improvements were also wearing blue secessionist cockades. So he sent a request to Washington asking permission to arm some of the workers that he felt were loyal to the union. Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, agreed that this was a prudent decision and gave permission to take 40 muskets from the federal arsenal in the city. But on November 3rd, the arms still had not been claimed and distributed. Lieutenant Colonel Gardner had vetoed the idea only days after the secessionists showed up, but the garrison was starting to fill the tension. On the day of the presidential election, Doubleday decided to take matters into his own hands and he made a list of supplies the garrison needed. The next day, Captain Truman Seymour volunteered to take a handful of the garrisons' men to Charleston for the resupply. Now remember, we're still more than a month away from actual secession, but the decision to secede was agreed upon privately by South Carolina's political leaders if Lincoln won the election, which was now the case. So Seymour and his men took a boat to Charleston Harbor and tied it up in front of the federal arsenal. They started loading up their supplies being boxes of ammunition mostly. After their fourth trip between the arsenal and the boat, a man showed up and ordered them to stop. The man, we don't know who he was, claimed that Seymour did not have permission from the local authorities and if he continued taking supplies from the arsenal, the man told him he would signal for 100 men in Charleston's vigilance committee to attack. Seymour decided not to test his fate, so he had his men put the ammunition back in the arsenal. The next day, now we're two days after Lincoln's election, Seymour called on the mayor of Charleston to request permission to get the supplies they were after. The mayor, Charles Macbeth, was in a pickle. He knew that secession was on the horizon, but as the state was still technically part of the union, he couldn't give a valid reason to deny the request for supplies, so he gave his permission. Gardiner, however, once again stepped in and vetoed the matter. He claimed that he did not want to accept Macbeth's permission because that would mean subordinating himself as a military officer to a local authority. But at this point, the standoff between Charleston and Moultrie started to become more clear. Gardiner ordered the garrison to keep all the artillery loaded and no more civilians should be allowed in the fort. The men started preparing the fort for possible hostilities. Garrison visited Charleston himself on November 16th and he was told that he would not be allowed to receive reinforcements. This was still a month prior to the official declaration of secession, but both sides were trying to prepare for a confrontation. Also in November, war secretary Floyd sent Fitz John Porter to visit Moultrie and bring back a report. Porter spoke well of the garrison, but everything else was damning. He said that Moultrie was almost entirely unguarded and the military should have been preparing the fort weeks before. His report also suggested replacing Lieutenant Colonel Gardner, though this was not explicitly recommended. The next day, Porter made a visit to Major Robert Anderson. Floyd wanted Anderson to take over as the commanding officer at Moultrie, Porter told him. Porter also sought advice from the leading military officer in the country, General Winfield Scott. General Scott's advice was to reinforce Moultrie and failing that, they should move to Fort Sumter. Robert Anderson arrived at Moultrie on November 19th and immediately started working to get the garrison in better shape. Anderson, for his part, was very sympathetic to the South and he was no fan of the Republican party, but he was a staunch unionist and above all else. He believed that his duty was to follow his military orders. Anderson also wanted to arm Castle Pinckney. Ideally, he wanted more men, but when he made his request to Washington, he asked to at least be allowed to send some workers and an officer to Pinckney to make repairs and let the officers train the workers in how to use the artillery there. But although he most overtly wanted reinforcements, he said that they needed to be sent secretly. Otherwise, Anderson was certain that Charleston would attempt to take the forts. Through the rest of November, Charlestonians heard plenty of rumors about Washington sending reinforcements to the forts. Some of the local militia volunteers wanted to take the forts immediately, but Colonel Benjamin Huger, a native Charlestonian, but also an old friend of Robert Anderson, stopped them by saying that if locals attacked the forts without being ordered to, he'd join Anderson in the fight against them himself. Huger, keep in mind, was still in the United States military when this took place on November 28th, though he would serve in the Confederate Army later, of course. So cooler heads in Charleston were trying to keep the rest of the people calm. They argued that a premature attack on Moultrie would be seen as an act of aggression. But of course, if any reinforcements were sent to Moultrie, South Carolina would see that as an act of aggression or at least to the threat of one. So the tension was building. Attacking early meant minimizing the risk of defeat, but also the possibility that other states would see them as the hostiles. As rumors continued to circulate about reinforcements, the leaders in Charleston decided that if they caught wind of any changes at the fort, that would be justification to seize Moultrie. But even if they did want to attack, the local militia in Charleston was hardly prepared anyway. On December 7th, War Secretary Floyd sent another person to Moultrie, this time Don Carlos Buell. The mission was to be secret, and Floyd refused to even write down the orders he wanted related to Anderson. President Buchanan had affirmed his duty to maintain all federal property. So Floyd sent Buell to remind Anderson to avoid confrontation if at all possible, but if a conflict did occur, to hold the forts at all costs. Buell wasn't naive though. He knew that although written messages might fall into the wrong hands, verbal messages can also be denied by Washington to throw officers under the bus if anything goes sour. So Buell relayed his message to Anderson and then wrote it down for him and made a copy to take back to Washington. As he was leaving, Buell also gave Anderson his own advice, which was not part of the official orders. Anderson should not pass up an opportunity to move his men to Fort Sumter with or without an order from Washington. As the session approached, Charlstonians were trying to figure out how they could take Fort Sumter while it was empty. And the Charleston Mercury even published an article about how this could be done. Members of the Charleston militia had also been spotted by the garrison inspecting the various forts. Again, this made the men nervous. So Foster decided to make another request for armaments to distribute to his laborers. The Charleston native, Colonel Huger, had been called back to Washington on December 7th and his replacement in charge of Charleston's arsenal was Captain Humphreys. Foster came to the arsenal and requested only two muskets to give to the ordinance sergeants stationed alone at Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney. Humphreys said that Foster could not have two muskets, but he could have 40 muskets. This was a clever play by Humphreys. Mayor Macbeth had signed the permission for 40 muskets back in October and it was Lieutenant Colonel Gardner who stopped Foster from getting the weapons. But Gardner was now replaced by Anderson and the mayor's permission slip to allow Foster to retrieve 40 muskets had never actually been rescinded or invalidated. So by Humphreys reasoning, there was no reason he couldn't hand over the 40 muskets now on December 17th. Foster went back to Moultrie with 40 new weapons in tow. But as news spread about Humphreys decision, Charleston residents were in an uproar. The South Carolina militia leader, Major General John Schnurl, I do not know if I'm pronouncing that word correctly, showed up at the arsenal the next day to confront Humphreys about it, saying that quote, some violent demonstration is certain unless the excitement can be allayed, end quote. He also said that Huger had effectively invalidated the October order by promising the governor that he would not turn over any weapons from the arsenal. So Humphreys told Schnieller that he would get the muskets back and he wrote a note for Foster telling him about the situation, ending it by saying quote, I beg that you will return them to me. Anderson agreed following Buell's orders from Floyd to try to avoid confrontation. But Foster was angry about the decision and he wrote a note to the higher ups in Washington to contest the decision to return the guns. Foster then met with Schnieller and Charleston and from his perspective, everything seemed to be perfectly calm, which suggests that either the locals had calmed down after Humphreys gave his assurances that the guns would be returned, our Schnieller had exaggerated the upset to begin with. So Foster said he'd wire Washington for a final decision. But the wire to Washington ended up being meaningless. Someone had already sent a wire from Charleston and gotten word to Floyd about the muskets and Floyd was furious at the play by Humphreys and Foster saying he never gave any such order. At around midnight, both Anderson and Foster received wires from Washington sternly ordering the return of the muskets which Foster did the next day. Literally only hours later, South Carolina voted to secede. The same day that South Carolina voted to secede, President Buchanan received a message that Governor Pickens had written a few days earlier. Pickens wanted Buchanan to peacefully give him Sumter. The note read quote, if Fort Sumter could be given to me as governor, then I think the public mind would be quieted under a feeling of safety. If something of the kind be not done, I cannot answer for the consequences. End quote. The last line was probably poorly chosen. It read like a veiled threat. Buchanan did not believe secession was constitutional but he also agreed not to take military action against South Carolina. A former official from South Carolina, William Henry Trescott, was present when the note was delivered and he copied the note and showed it to Jefferson Davis and John Slidel, two deep South senators. They did not approve of Pickens' poor diplomacy and they sent a wire to Pickens urging him to contact Buchanan and retract the message. Trescott also sent Pickens a wire summarizing Buchanan's reaction to the letter. Two weeks earlier Buchanan had announced to Congress that he intended to take no action against South Carolina upon the secession and he believed he was acting graciously. Therefore he resented the tone of the message and he even made the point that he had refused to reinforce Fort Moultrie. The press had castigated him but he claimed that he had made all these concessions and tolerated the criticism in order to avoid conflict only to have Pickens send him a message with threatening implications. Two days later, Pickens sent another wire to Trescott saying that a train had just brought in 13 men who were apparently meant to reinforce Moultrie and there would be another 150 following behind them all sent by Washington. Pickens demanded an answer on whether Buchanan intended to reinforce the Fort or to move troops to Sumter. Trescott brought the question to war secretary John Floyd who only whimpered about what a difficult position he was in. South Carolina had also sent delegates to Washington to negotiate a peaceful transfer of the forts and Floyd said that they'd be there soon so they could deal with the issue. Floyd also suggested that it was silly to be worried about the possibility of any troops moving to Fort Sumter but Pickens kept getting conflicting information about reinforcements and he was understandably on edge. The governorship was supposed to be an easy almost ceremonial position and he was having to deal with a possible military conflict. South Carolina had called up 10 regiments of soldiers and Pickens was authorized to use them to resist any coercive act by the United States. By coercion the legislature clarified they included any intention to commit an aggressive act such as reinforcing the garrison at the fort but Pickens wasn't sure if there was any genuine intention or not all he had were conflicting rumors and Washington was dancing around the issue. The state was also severely underarmed at the point of secession and Pickens was aware of this. As of December 20th the state armory in Columbia had a few thousand antiquated muskets, 34 cavalry pistols, three swords and about 1500 sabers. If he did have to take military action he would not be well equipped to do so but the legislature was already working to try to secure more weapons. But Pickens did come up with a plan on how to deal with Moultrie at least for the time. Adapting the advice given to him by Robert Barnwell Rhett Jr. a well-known fire eater and the owner of the Charleston Mercury Pickens decided to put some soldiers on a pair of steamers somewhere between 40 and 120 men total but the reports are conflicting and he set the steamers between Fort Moultrie and Sumter patrolling back and forth between them. The ships arrived on the evening of December 20th to the surprise of the garrison. Following the official secession Major Anderson and his men were growing even more worried about an attempt to take the forts. One of his officers reported that Charlestonians were preparing scaling ladders. At this point, both Pickens and Anderson had their eyes on Fort Sumter. Anderson was in an easier position. If you moved his men to Fort Sumter it can only be seen as a defiance of orders. But if Pickens took the fort while the delegates were trying to negotiate a peaceful transfer of federal property it could be seen as an act of aggression. So even though Pickens was being urged by some such as Robert Barnwell Rhett Jr. to take Sumter Anderson was able to move first. He decided that the best day to transfer to Sumter would be Christmas night. He estimated that this would be the same day that the commissioners from South Carolina would arrive in Washington. He also didn't bother to get permission from Buchanan who he did not expect would approve of the move. If he waited until after December 26th the commissioners could wire Pickens about the results of the negotiation and if Buchanan denied the transfer which was most likely then Pickens was likely to attack Moultrie on the 27th. Anderson assumed that Pickens would attack the garrison and Sumter was the superior fort but he did not know Pickens was actually eyeing Sumter himself rather than Moultrie. Anderson kept his plans to himself but he strongly encouraged his officers to attend church on Christmas day so as not to give Charleston any cause for suspicion. His first problem was figuring out what to do with the wives of the enlisted men there are more than 20 wives at the fort as well as their children many of whom were infants. Anderson decided that he would move the women and children to Fort Johnson which was the only fort that nobody seemed overly concerned with. He could move them along with much of the garrison's food supply. The plan to move the women, children and food to Fort Johnston reached Charleston through whatever spy network was in place but nobody was really concerned about this. To throw off his larger plan Anderson even had some military hardware moved from Sumter to Moultrie to make it seem like he had every intention of staying put. The second problem was what to do with the weapons he planned to leave behind at Moultrie. He could spike the cannons aimed at Sumter which if you remember from my Nicaragua episodes was the method of hammering a spike in the gun's vent hole to prevent it from being fired but this was only a delay tactic. Spikes could be removed so he consulted with Doubleday about what to do. Doubleday said that they should just burn the wooden carriages that held the guns. It would take longer to do but it would also take longer to fix. Doubleday wasn't even aware of the plans to move to Sumter but there was so much discussion about all the possible scenarios that the question didn't even seem odd at all to him. But when Christmas evening came around Anderson had all his plans in place only to have nasty weather. He delayed his plan for December 26th. The women and children were loaded up first doing so while it was still light out. After the women and children were loaded up into the boats at about three in the afternoon Anderson revealed his plan to John Foster and Norman Hall. Hall was to take the women to Fort Johnson and under the pretense of looking for a safe spot to unload them he was to patrol the island. The men at Fort Moultrie would fire off two shots as a signal for him at which point he was to go directly to Sumter telling the Charlestonians on the steamers that he was checking Sumter for better accommodations for the women and children. This way the women and children would be taken to Sumter but if there was a conflict while the garrison was making the move the women and children would be kept out of harm's way. After the sun started to set Anderson put the rest of his plan in motion other than Foster and Hall nobody else knew of Anderson's plan even now. Abner Doubleday was looking for Anderson to invite him to have tea with him and his wife. The wives of officers were the only wives not moved to Fort Johnson by the way but when Doubleday and Anderson found each other Anderson told him about the plans to move to Sumter. Doubleday had 20 minutes to get company E ready to move carrying their muskets and a knapsack. Knapsacks at this point were always expected to be packed in the morning in case of an attack so this was a reasonable order but still one that would require the men to move fast. The idea was to send two waves of men across to Sumter. Doubleday's men and company E would move first. Lieutenant Davis was ordered to hang back in Moultrie to man the guns aimed towards Sumter though and fire on any ships if they tried to interfere. After Doubleday's company made it to Sumter if all went well, Seymour's company H would make the trip with Foster taking over Davis's position and after the second wave finished he was to spike the guns pointed at Sumter and set fire to the carriages. The men should then grab whatever supplies they could and the remaining few would make the trip to Sumter after the second wave of boats returned. The two waves made their trips to Sumter without incident and one of the men fired off the two signal shots to let Hall know to make his way to Sumter with the women and children. By eight o'clock the plan was complete. When Buchanan and the commissioners found out about this nobody was happy. The commissioners said it was an act of war but Buchanan refused to disavow it. They claimed that by refusing to take action against Anderson Buchanan may have made war inevitable. The commissioners sent this information in a note to the president but Buchanan refused to even accept the note. But now Buchanan had to figure out what to do about Anderson in the minute for Sumter. Governor Pickens was confident that they would send reinforcements if not a full attack force. When he inspected Moultrie and saw that the gun carriages were burned he was outraged at the destruction of public property. Fort Moultrie was in no position to defend against a possible attack against Fort Sumter in the state, Anderson left it. Early in January, General Winfield Scott sent Lieutenant Colonel Lorenzo Thomas to New York to see about the possibility of using a civilian vessel to send reinforcements to Sumter. Thomas decided on Cornelius Vanderbilt's ship the Star of the West which the army could lease for $1,250 a day. Thomas then made the arrangements to load the ship with 200 troops as well as a load of weapons and the ship set off from New York's harbor on January 5th. The next day rumors were pouring into Charleston about the ship but nobody knew exactly what to believe. By January 8th, the rumors about the Star of the West seemed a little more credible. The Charleston Mercury ran a story that began, quote, United States troops hastening from all points southward the Star of the West with reinforcements for Anderson do here today, end quote. Bickens relayed orders to the patrolling ships to fire signals to let the city know of an approaching enemy ship and the artillerists at Moultrie were to open fire to prevent reinforcements. The ship arrived not long after midnight on January 9th but it was dark and there wasn't any lights around the forts so they'd have to wait until the sun came up to land. At a little after six in the morning the Charleston patrol steamer fired off a signal to the Star, one blue light and two red which was the signal for the approaching ship to reveal who it was. When no reply came, the steamer turned towards the harbor signaling the approach of an enemy ship and the star followed behind. South Carolina troops were prepared for this and upon seeing the signals, they readied their artillery. Major Peter Stevens was in charge and he did his best to aim the artillery but he didn't have the best equipment to do this. Part of aiming an artillery gun was to measure the appropriate amount of gunpowder for the distance needed and that meant having a sight to gauge the distance. Stevens did the best he could with the equipment he had aimed his first shot and fired. The shot fell well short of the star but this was actually intentional and it was only a warning shot. After seeing that the star was continuing to move forward Stevens then ordered his soldiers to start firing. The next shot was not a warning shot and a lot of people consider this the first shot of the Civil War. Shot past the front of the star, the star sped up and the troops on the ship raised a flag to let Anderson know they were being fired on. The next couple of shots missed as well. Anderson meanwhile was ordering his men to prepare their guns too. At this point, Moultrie could not hold up against Sumter for very long. The walls were weak and they did not have a large supply of gunpowder. On board the star, the officers were nervous. They had never seen battle and they could see a ship coming toward them which they feared might block their exit. They made their decision to turn around rather than get blocked in. The reinforcements never made it to Sumter. Now Anderson and his men were trapped there and would continue to be trapped there due to the indecision of both President Buchanan and President Lincoln, each unwilling to withdraw them and Lincoln reluctant to arm them and be seen as the aggressor in a pending war. There is much more to this history to talk about before we get to the bombardment of Sumter in April. While Buchanan was vacillating on what to do about South Carolina and the forts there, President-elect Lincoln was also trying to figure out what he could do that would prevent secession on the one hand but maintain the new Republican party on the other. As more southern states followed South Carolina and seceding, the political leaders in the South also inherited the issue of Fort Sumter and all of this is worth covering. Lincoln's attempt at compromise, the infamous Corwin Amendment, that would have explicitly protected slavery in the South will be the subject of the next episode. 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