1. By Eli Thayer, of Massachusetts: No further acquisition of territory. No Congressional legislation about slavery. Presidential electors to be chosen by districts.

2. By John Cochrane, of New York: Divide the Territories on the line of 36 30', prohibiting slavery north and permitting it south. No prohibition of inter-State slave trade. Unrestricted right of transit and sojourn with slaves in free States. Personal liberty laws to be null and void.

3. By Garnett B. Adrain, of New Jersey: Non-intervention by Congress. Repeal of personal liberty laws. Fraternity, conciliation, and compromise.

4. By Edward Joy Morris, of Pennsylvania: To investigate personal liberty laws, and suggest amendments to fugitive-slave law.

5. By James A. Stewart, of Maryland: Investigation to secure constitutional rights of States in the Union. If this be impracticable, to investigate best mode of separation.

6. By Shelton F. Leake, of Virginia: No constitutional power to abolish slavery or slave-trade in the States, Territories, or District of Columbia. Protection to slavery in Territories, and in transit through or sojourn in free-States. Fugitive slaves lost through State legislation, or by act of State authorities, to be paid for.

7. By William Smith, of Virginia: Declare out of the Union every State which shall by her legislation aim to nullify an act of Congress.

8. By Samuel S. Cox, of Ohio: Punishment of executives, judges, attorney-general, or other officers who obstruct the execution of the fugitive-slave law.

9. By John Hutchins, of Ohio: Laws against kidnaping, lynching, or unreasonable search or seizure.

10. By John Sherman, of Ohio: Laws to enforce all obligations imposed by the Constitution. Division of all Territory into States, and their prompt admission into the Union.

11. By John A. Bingham, of Ohio: Laws to suppress rebellion, to protect United States property against unlawful seizure and citizens against unlawful violence.

12. By Robert Mallory, of Kentucky: Prohibit slavery north and protect it south of the line of 30 36'. Admit States with or without slavery. No prohibition or abolition of the inter-State slave trade or slavery in the District of Columbia, or in arsenals, dockyards, etc., of the United States.

13. By John W. Stevenson, of Kentucky: Declare resistance to fugitive-slave law, or rescue of slaves from custody of officers, felony.

14. By William H. English, of Indiana: Divide Territories. Congress shall not impair right of property in slaves. Double compensation from cities, counties, or townships for slaves rescued by mob violence or State legislation.

15. By David Kilgore, of Indiana: Trial by jury and writ of error under fugitive-slave law. Criminal prosecution against forcible hindrance or rescue of fugitives. Payment by the United States for fugitives rescued by force.

16. By William S. Holman, of Indiana: The Constitution is a compact of mutual and permanent obligation. No right of secession. Laws should be enforced in good faith and with temperate firmness. Ample legal provision against any attempt to nullify the laws.

17. By William E. Niblack, of Indiana: Payment by offending cities, counties, or districts for fugitive slaves rescued.

18. By John A. McClernand, of Illinois: Indemnity for fugitive slaves rescued. A special Federal police to execute United States laws, and suppress unlawful resistance thereof.

19. By Thomas C. Hindman, of Arkansas: Right of property in slaves in slave-States. No interdiction of inter-State slave trade. Protection of slavery in all Territories. Admission of States with or without slavery. Right to hold slaves in transit through free-States. Deprive States enacting personal liberty laws of representation in Congress. Give slave-holding States an absolute negative upon all action of Congress relating to slavery. States to appoint the officers exercising Federal functions within their limits. Make these provisions, together with three-fifths representation, unrepealable.

20. By Charles H. Larrabee, of Wisconsin: A convention to amend Constitution.

21. By Thomas L. Anderson, of Missouri: Submit to the Supreme Court of the United States the questions at issue between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States. Carry into effect by law the opinion of said Court as a final settlement. (Submitted Dec. 13.)—"Globe," Dec. 12 and 13, 1860, pp. 76-79, and 96.

[3] "We want nothing more than a simple declaration that negro slaves are property, and we want the recognition of the obligation of the Federal Government to protect that property like all other." Senate Speech, "Globe," May 17, 1860, p. 2155.



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE CONSPIRACY PROCLAIMED

To a great majority of the people the hopes and chances of a successful compromise seemed still cheering and propitious. There was indeed a prevailing agitation in the Southern part of the Union, but it had taken a virulent form in less than half a dozen States. In most of these a decided majority still deprecated disunion. Three of the great political parties of the country were by the voice of their leaders pledged to peace and order; the fourth, apparently controlled as yet by the powerful influences of official subordination and patronage, must, so it seemed, yield to the now expressed and public advice of the President in favor of Union and the enforcement of the law; especially in view of the forbearance and kindness he was personally exercising towards the unruly elements of his faction. Throughout the Northern States the folly and evils of disunion appeared so palpable that it was not generally regarded as an imminent danger, but rather as merely a possible though not probable event. The hasty and seemingly earnest action of the people and authorities of South Carolina was looked upon as a historical repetition of the nullification crisis of 1831-32; and without examining too closely the real present condition of affairs, men hoped, rather than intelligently expected, that the parallel would continue to the end. Some sort of compromise of the nature of that of 1850 was the prevailing preoccupation in politics.

This was the popular view of the situation. But it was an erroneous view, because it lacked the essential information necessary to form a correct and solid judgment. The deep estrangement between the sections was imperfectly realized. The existence of four parties, a very unusual occurrence in American politics, had seriously weakened party cohesion, and more than quadrupled party prejudice and mistrust. There was a strong undercurrent of conviction and purpose, not expressed in speeches and platforms. But the most serious ignorance was in respect to the character and fidelity of the high officers of the Government. Of the timidity of Mr. Buchanan, of the treachery of three members of the Cabinet, of the exclusion of General Scott from military councils, of the President's refusal to send troops to Anderson, of his stipulation with the South Carolina Members, of the intrigue which drove General Cass from the head of the State Department and from the Cabinet, the people at large knew nothing, or so little that they could put no intelligent construction upon the events. The debates of Congress shed the first clear light upon the situation, but the very violence and bitterness of the secession speeches caused the multitude to doubt their sincerity, or placed their authors in the category of fanatics who would gain no followers.

While, therefore, the Republicans in Congress and in the country maintained, as a rule, an expectant and watchful silence, the conservatives, made up for the greater part of the supporters of Bell and Everett, were active in setting on foot a movement for compromise, in the final success of which they had the fullest confidence; and it is but justice to their integrity and ability to add that this confidence was warranted by the delusive indications of surface politics. Highly patriotic in purpose and prudent in act, their leading men in Congress had promptly opposed secession, had moved a Senate Committee of Thirteen, and secured the appointment and the organization of the House Committee of Thirty-three. Already some twenty-three different propositions of adjustment had been submitted to this committee, and under the circumstances it actually seemed as if only a little patience and patriotic earnestness were needed to find a compromise,—perhaps an amendment of the Constitution,—which the feverish unrest and impatience of the nation would compel Congress to enact or propose, and the different States and sections, willing or unwilling, to accept arid ratify.

Superior political wisdom and more thorough information, as well as a finer strategy, a quicker enthusiasm, and a more unremitting industry, must be accorded to the conspirators who now labored night and day in the interest of disunion. They discerned more clearly than their opponents the demoralization of parties at the North, the latent revolutionary discontent at the South, the influence of brilliant and combined leadership, and the social, commercial, and political conditions which might be brought into action. They recognized that they were but a minority, a faction; but they also realized that as such they had a substantial control of from six to eleven States whenever they chose to make that control effective, and that, for present uses at least, the President was, under their influence, but as clay in the hands of the potter.

Better than the Republicans from the North, or even the conservatives from the border States, they knew that in the Cotton States a widespread change of popular sentiment was then being wrought and might very soon be complete. Except upon the extreme alternative of disunion, the people of the border States were eager to espouse their quarrel, and join them in a contest for alleged political rights. Nearly half the people of the North were ready to acknowledge the justness of their complaints. The election of Lincoln was indeed a flimsy pretext for separation, but it had the merit of universal publicity, and of rankling irritation among the unthinking masses of the South. Agriculture was depressed, commerce was in panic, manufacturing populations were in want, the national treasury was empty, the army was dispersed, the navy was scattered. The national prestige was humbled, the national sentiment despondent, the national faith disturbed.

Meanwhile their intrigues had been successful beyond hope. The Government was publicly committed to the fatal doctrine of non-coercion, and was secretly pursuing the equally fatal policy of concession. Reenforeements had been withheld from Charleston, and must, from motives of consistency, be withheld from all other forts and stations. An unofficial stipulation, with the President, and a peremptory order to Anderson, secured beyond chance the safe and early secession of South Carolina, and the easy seizure of the Government property. The representatives of foreign governments were already secretly coquetting for the favor of a free port and an advantageous cotton-market. Friendly voices came to the South from the North, in private correspondence, in the public press, even in the open debates of Congress, promising that cities should go up in flames and the fair country be laid waste before a single Northern bayonet should molest them in their meditated secession.

Upon such a real or assumed state of facts the conspirators based their theory, and risked their chances of success in dismembering the republic,—and it must be admitted that they chose their opportunity with a skill and foresight which for a considerable period of time gave them immense advantages over the friends of the Union. One vital condition of success, however, they strangely overlooked, or rather, perhaps, deliberately crowded out of their problem—the chance of civil war, without foreign intervention. For the present their whole plan depended upon the assumption that they could accomplish their end by means of the single instrumentality of peaceable secession; and with this view they proceeded to put their scheme into prompt execution.

[Sidenote] Correspondence New York "Tribune", Dec. 10, 1860.

The House Committee of Thirty-three had been organized by the selection of Thomas Corwin as its chairman, and had entered hopefully upon the task confided to it. A caucus of active conspirators was said to have been held the week previous, to intimidate the members from the Cotton States and induce them to refuse to serve on the committee, but this coercive movement only partly succeeded. The Committee of Thirty-three held a long meeting on December 12, and now, on the morning of the 13th, was once more convened for work. The informal propositions and discussions of the day previous were renewed, but resulted only in calling out views and schemes too vague on the one hand or too extreme on the other. The subject was about to be laid over to the following Saturday, when Albert Rust, of Arkansas, startled the committee with the information that the extremists were obtaining signatures to a paper to announce to the South that no further concession was expected from the North, and that any adjustment of pending difficulties had become impossible. He, therefore, offered a resolution to meet this unexpected crisis, but accepted the following substitute, offered by William McKee Dunn, of Indiana:

Resolved, That in the opinion of this Committee, the existing discontent among the Southern people and the growing hostility among them to the Federal Government are greatly to be regretted, and that whether such discontent and hostility are without just cause or not, any reasonable, proper, and constitutional remedies and effectual guarantees of their peculiar rights and interests, as recognized by the Constitution, necessary to preserve the peace of the country and the perpetuation of the Union, should be promptly and cheerfully granted.

[Sidenote] Proceedings of the committee and card of Hon. Reuben Davis, "National Intelligencer," Dec. 14 and 15, 1860.

[Sidenote] Gen. Scott, "Autobiography," Vol. II., p. 613.

Other amendments were voted down, and this proposition was adopted by a vote of twenty-two to eight, and thus, in good faith, a tender of reasonable concession and honorable and satisfactory compromise was made by the North to the South. But the peace-offering was a waste of patience and good-will. Caucus after caucus of the secession leaders had only grown more aggressive, and deepened and strengthened their inflexible purpose to push the country into disunion. The presence of General Scott, who after a long illness had come from New York to Washington, on December 12, to give his urgent advice to the work of counteracting secession by vigorous military preparation, did not disconcert or hinder the secession leaders. His patriotic appeal to the Secretary of War on the 13th naturally fell without effect upon the ears of one of their active confederates. Neither the temporizing concession of the President nor the conciliatory and half-apologetic resolution of the Committee of Thirty-three for one instant changed or affected the determination to destroy the Government and dissolve the Union.

Friday, December 14, 1860, was a day of gloom and despondency in Mr. Buchanan's office, bringing to his mind more forcibly than he had ever before realized the utter wreck into which he had guided his Administration. To the jubilant secessionists it was not only a day of triumph achieved, but also of apparently assured successes yet to come. The hitherto official organ of the Administration in its issue of the following morning contained two publications which gave startling notice to the country of the weakness of the right and the strength of the wrong in the swiftly approaching struggle for national existence.

The first of these documents was a proclamation from the President of the United States, saying that in response to numerous appeals he designated the fourth day of January, proximo, as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer. The "dangerous and distracted condition of our country" was therein thus set forth:

[Sidenote] Washington "Constitution," Dec. 15, 1860.

The Union of the States is at the present moment threatened with alarming and immediate danger—panic and distress of a fearful character prevail throughout the land—our laboring population are without employment, and consequently deprived of the means of earning their bread—indeed, hope seems to have deserted the minds of men. All classes are in a state of confusion and dismay, and the wisest counsels of our best and purest men are wholly disregarded.... Humbling ourselves before the Most High, ... let us implore him to remove from our hearts that false pride of opinion which would impel us to persevere in wrong for the sake of consistency, rather than yield a just submission to the unforeseen exigencies by which we are now surrounded.... An omnipotent Providence may overrule existing evils for permanent good.

The second manifesto was more practical and resolute. As the first public and combined action of the conspirators, it forms the hinge upon which they well-nigh turned the fate of the New World Republic. It was a brief document, but contained and expressed all the essential purposes of the conspiracy. It was signed by about one-half the Senators and Representatives of the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas. It precedes every ordinance of secession, and is the "official" beginning of the subsequent "Confederate States," just as Governor Gist's October circular was the "official" beginning of South Carolina secession.

[Sidenote] Washington "Constitution," Dec. 15, 1860.

ADDRESS OF CERTAIN SOUTHERN MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. TO OUR CONSTITUENTS.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 1860.

The argument is exhausted. All hope of relief in the Union through the agency of committees, Congressional legislation, or constitutional amendments is extinguished, and we trust the South will not be deceived by appearances or the pretense of new guarantees. In our judgment the Republicans are resolute in the purpose to grant nothing that will or ought to satisfy the South. We are satisfied the honor, safety, and independence of the Southern people require the organization of a Southern Confederacy—a result to be obtained only by separate State secession—that the primary object of each slave-holding State ought to be its speedy and absolute separation from a Union with hostile States.

J.L. Pugh of Alabama. David Clopton of Alabama. Sydenham Moore of Alabama. J.L.M. Curry of Alabama. J.A. Stallworth of Alabama. J.W.H. Underwood of Georgia. L.J. Gartrell of Georgia. James Jackson of Georgia. John J. Jones of Georgia. Martin J. Crawford of Georgia. Alfred Iverson, U.S. Senator, Georgia. George S. Hawkins of Florida. T.C. Hindman of Arkansas. Jefferson Davis, U.S. Senator, Mississippi. A.G. Brown, U.S. Senator, Mississippi. Wm. Barksdale of Mississippi. O.R. Singleton of Mississippi. Reuben Davis of Mississippi. Burton Craige of North Carolina. Thomas Ruffin of North Carolina. John Slidell, U.S. Senator, Louisiana. J.P. Benjamin, U.S. Senator, Louisiana. J.M. Landrum of Louisiana. Louis T. Wigfall, U.S. Senator, Texas. John Hemphill, U.S. Senator, Texas. J.H. Reagan of Texas. M.L. Bonham of South Carolina. Wm. Porcher Miles of South Carolina. John McQueen of South Carolina. John D. Ashmore of South Carolina.

This proclamation of revolution, when analyzed, reveals with sufficient clearness the design and industry with which the conspirators were step by step building up their preconcerted movement of secession and rebellion. Every justifying allegation in the document was notoriously untrue.

Instead of the argument being exhausted, it was scarcely begun. So far from Congressional or constitutional relief having been refused, the Southern demand for them had not been formulated. Not only had no committee denied hearing or action, but the Democratic Senate, at the instance of a Southern State, had ordered the Committee of Thirteen, which the Democratic and Southern Vice-President had not yet even appointed; and when the names were announced a week later, Jefferson Davis, one of the signers of this complaint of non-action, was the only man who refused to serve on the committee—a refusal he withdrew when persuaded by his co-conspirators that he could better aid their designs by accepting. On the other hand, the Committee of Thirty-three, raised by the Republican House, appointed by a Northern Speaker, and presided over by a Northern chairman, had the day before by more than a two-thirds vote distinctly tendered the Southern people "any reasonable, proper, and constitutional remedies and effectual guarantees."

Outside of Congressional circles there was the same absence of any new complications, any new threats, any new dangers from the North. Since the day when Abraham Lincoln was elected President there had been absolutely no change of word or act in the attitude and intention of himself or his followers. By no possibility could they exert a particle of adverse political power, executive, legislative, or judicial, for nearly three months. Not only was executive authority in the hands of a Democratic Administration, which had made itself the peculiar champion of the Southern party, but it had yielded every successive demand of administrative policy made by the conspirators themselves. The signers of this address to their Southern constituents had not one single excuse.



CHAPTER XXIX

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 reenforcement 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 reenforcements, 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 role 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."

————— [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.