Chapter 20 Major Anderson - Abraham Lincoln Vol.2, by Hay & Nicolay

CHAPTER XX
MAJOR ANDERSON
 President Buchanan and his Administration could not, if they would, shut their eyes to the treasonable utterances and preparations at Charleston and elsewhere in the South; but so far neither the speeches nor bonfires nor palmetto flags, nor even the secession message of Governor Gist or the Convention bill of the South Carolina Legislature, constituted a statutory offense. For twelve years the threat of disunion had been in the mouths of the Southern slavery extremists and their Northern allies the most potent and formidable weapon of national politics. It was declaimed on the stump, elaborated in Congressional speeches, set out in national platforms, and paraded as a solemn warning in executive messages.
Mr. Buchanan had profited by the disunion cry both as politician and functionary; and now when disunion came in a practical and undisguised shape he was to a degree powerless to oppose it, because he was disarmed by his own words and his own acts. The disunionists were his partisans, his friends, and confidential counselors; they constituted a remnant of the once proud and successful party which, by his compliance and coöperation in their interest, he had disrupted and defeated. Their programme hitherto had been the policy upon which he had staked the success or failure of his Administration, so that in addition to every other tie he was bound to them by the common sorrow of political disaster.
[Illustration: GENERAL ROBERT ANDERSON.]
Being in such intimate relations and intercourse with the leaders of the Breckinridge wing of the Democratic party during the progress of the Presidential canvass, and that party being made up so exclusively of the extreme Southern Democrats, the President must have had constant information of the progress and development of the disunion sentiment and purpose in the South. He was not restricted as the other parties and the general public were to imperfect reports and doubtful rumors current in the newspapers.
But in addition there now came to him an official warning which it was a grave error to disregard. On October 29, one week before the election, the veteran Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, General-in-Chief of the Army, communicated to him in writing his serious apprehensions of coming danger, and suggested such precautions as were then in the power of the Administration. Beginning life as a farmer's boy, collegian, and law student, General Scott from choice became a soldier, devoting himself to the higher aims of the profession of arms, and in a brilliant career of half a century had achieved world-wide renown as a great military captain. In the United States, however, the military is subordinated to the civic ambition, and Scott all his life retained a strong leaning to diplomacy and statesmanship, and on several important occasions gave his country valuable service in essentially civic functions. He had been the unsuccessful Presidential candidate of the Whig party in 1852, a circumstance which no doubt greatly increased his personal attention to current politics, then and afterwards. As the first military officer of the nation, he was also the watchful guardian of the public peace.
  [Sidenote] Lieut.-General Winfield Scott, "Autobiography," Vol. I.,   p. 234.
The impending rebellion was not to him, as it was to the nation at large, a new event in politics. Many men were indeed aware, through tradition and history, that it was but the Calhoun nullification treason revived and pushed to a bolder extreme. To General Scott it was almost literally the repetition of an old experience. A generation before, he was himself a prominent actor in opposing the nullification plot. About the 4th of November, 1832, upon special summons, he was taken into a confidential interview by President Jackson, who, after asking Scott's military views upon the threatened rebellion of the nullifiers in Charleston harbor, by oral orders charged him with the duty of enforcing the laws and maintaining the supremacy of the Union; the President placing at his orders the troops and vessels necessary for this purpose. Scott accepted the trust and went to Charleston, and while humoring the nullification Quixotism existing there, he executed the purpose of his mission, by strengthening the defenses and reenforcing; the Federal forts.[1] His task was accomplished with the utmost delicacy, but with firmness. The rebellion was indeed abandoned upon pretense of compromise; but had a conflict occurred at that time the flag of the Union would probably not have been the first to be lowered in defeat.
It was, therefore, most fitting that in these new complications Lieutenant-General Scott should officially admonish President Buchanan. He addressed to him a paper entitled "Views suggested by the imminent danger (October 29, 1860) of a disruption of the Union by the secession of one or more of the Southern States"; and also certain supplementary memoranda the day after, to the Secretary of War, the two forming in reality but a single document. General Scott was at this time residing in New York City, and the missives were probably twenty-four hours in reaching Washington. This letter of the commander of the American armies written at such a crisis is full of serious faults, and is a curious illustration of the temper of the times, showing as it does that even in the mind of the first soldier of the republic the foundations of political faith were crumbling away. The superficial and speculative theories of Scott the politician stand out in unfavorable contrast to the practical advice of Scott the soldier.
Once break the Union by political madness, reasons Scott the politician, and any attempt to restore it by military force would establish despotism and create anarchy. A lesser evil than this would be to form four new confederacies out of the fragments of the old.[2] And on this theme he theorizes respecting affinities and boundaries and the folly of secession.
  [Sidenote] "Mr. Buchanan's Administration," Appendix, p. 289.
The advice of Scott the soldier was wiser and more opportune. The prospect of Lincoln's election, he says, causes threats of secession. There is danger that certain forts of national value and importance, six totally destitute of troops, and three having only feeble and insufficient garrisons, may be seized by insurgents. "In my opinion all these works should be immediately so garrisoned as to make any attempt to take any one of them, by surprise or _coup de main_, ridiculous." There were five companies of regulars within reach, available for this service. This plan was provisional only; it eschewed the idea of invading a seceded State; and he suggested the collection of customs duties, outside of the cities.
  [Sidenote] "Mr. Buchanan's Administration," p. 104.
  [Sidenote] Buchanan, in the "National Intelligencer," Oct. 1, 1862.
Eight to ten States on the verge of insurrection--nine principal sea-coast forts within their borders, absolutely at the mercy of the first handful of street rabble that might collect, and only about four hundred men, scattered in five different and distant cities, available to reënforce them! It was a startling exhibit of national danger from one professionally competent to judge and officially entitled to advise. His timely and patriotic counsel President Buchanan treated with indifference and neglect. "From the impracticable nature of the 'Views,' and their strange and inconsistent character, the President dismissed them from his mind without further consideration." Such is Mr. Buchanan's own confession. He indulges in the excuse that to have then attempted to put these five companies in all or part of these nine forts "would have been a confession of weakness instead of an exhibition of imposing and overpowering strength." "None of the Cotton States had made the first movement towards secession. Even South Carolina was then performing all her relative duties, though most reluctantly, to the Government," etc. "To have attempted such a military operation with so feeble a force, and the Presidential election impending, would have been an invitation to collision and secession. Indeed, if the whole American army, consisting then of only sixteen thousand men, had been 'within reach' they would have been scarcely sufficient for this purpose."
The error of this reasoning was well shown by General Scott in a newspaper controversy which subsequently ensued.[3] He pointed out that of the nine forts enumerated by him, six, namely, Forts Moultrie and Sumter in Charleston harbor, Forts Pickens and McRae in Pensacola harbor, and Forts Jackson and St. Philip guarding the Mississippi below New Orleans, were "twin forts" on opposite sides of a channel, whose strength was more than doubled by their very position and their ability to employ cross and flanking fire in mutual support and defense. These works, together with the three others mentioned by General Scott, namely, Fort Morgan in Mobile harbor, Fort Pulaski below Savannah, and Fortress Monroe at Hampton Roads, were all, because of their situation at vital points, not merely works of local defense, but of the highest strategical value. The reënforcements advised would surely have enabled the Government to hold them until further defensive measures could have been arranged; and the effect of such possession on the incipient insurrection may be well imagined when we remember the formidable armaments afterwards employed in the reduction of such of them as were permitted, without an effort on the part of President Buchanan to prevent it, to be occupied by the insurgents.
But the warning to the Administration that the Southern forts were in danger came not alone from General Scott. Two of the works mentioned by him as of prime importance were Forts Moultrie and Sumter in Charleston harbor. There was still a third fort there, Castle Pinckney, in a better condition of repair and preparation than either of the former, and much nearer the city. Had it been properly occupied and manned, its guns alone would have been sufficient to control Charleston. But there was only an ordnance sergeant in Castle Pinckney, only an ordnance sergeant in Fort Sumter, and a partial garrison in Fort Moultrie. Both Sumter and Moultrie were greatly and Castle Pinckney slightly out of repair. During the summer of 1860 Congress made an appropriation for these works; and the engineer captain who had been in charge for two years had indeed been ordered to begin and prosecute repairs in the two forts.
  [Sidenote] Report, F.J. Porter. W.R.[4] Vol. I., pp. 70-72.
  [Sidenote] Craig to Floyd, Oct. 31, 1860, with Floyd's indorsement.   W.R. Vol. I., pp. 67-8.
Captain J.G. Foster, the engineer to whom this duty was confided, was of New England birth and a loyal and devoted soldier. He began work on the 12th of September; and not foreseeing the consequences involved, employed in the different works between two and three hundred men, partly hired in Charleston, partly in Baltimore. There were in the several forts not only the cannon to arm them, but also considerable quantities of ammunition and other government property; and aware of the hum of secession preparation which began to fill the air in Charleston, Captain Foster in October asked the Ordnance Bureau at Washington for forty muskets, with which to arm twenty workmen in Fort Sumter and twenty in Castle Pinckney. "If," wrote the Chief of Ordnance to the Secretary of War, "the measure should on being communicated meet the concurrence of the commanding officer of the troops in the harbor, I recommend that I may be authorized to issue forty muskets to the engineer officer." Upon this recommendation, Secretary of War Floyd wrote the word "approved." Under the usual routine of peaceful times the questions went by mail to Colonel Gardner, then commander of the harbor, "Is it expedient to issue forty muskets to Captain Foster? Is it proper to place arms in the hands of hired workmen? Is it expedient to do so?"
  [Sidenote] Gardner to Craig, November 5, 1860. W.R. Vol. I.,   pp. 68-9.
To this Colonel Gardner replied, under date of November 5, that, repeating what he had already written, his fears were not of any attack on the works, authorized by the city or State, but there was danger of such an attempt from a sudden tumultuary force; and that while in such an event forty muskets would be desirable, he felt "constrained to say that the only proper precaution--that which has no objection--is to fill these two companies with drilled recruits (say fifty men) at once, and send two companies from Old Point Comfort to occupy, respectively, Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney."
  [Sidenote] Dawson, "Historical Magazine," January, 1872, p. 37.
  [Sidenote] F.J. Porter to Cooper, November 11, 1860. W.R. Vol. I.,   pp. 70-72.
His answer and recommendation were both business-like and soldierly, and contained no indications that justify any suspicion of his loyalty or judgment. Meanwhile, on the heels of this official call for reënforcements, came a still more urgent one. It is alleged on the one hand that complaints of the inefficiency of Colonel Gardner had reached Washington, and that, in consequence thereof, either the Secretary of War or the President sent for specific information in regard to it. Major Fitz John Porter, then Assistant Adjutant-General, on duty in the War Department, went in person to Charleston, and made the examination. There are, on the other hand, several vague allegations by the insurgents, to the substantial effect that this call for reënforcements was Colonel Gardner's real offense; leaving the implication that Major Fitz John Porter's inspection was purposely instituted to find reasons for removing the Colonel and thus frustrating the obligation to send him additional troops. The order for Major Porter's visit was made on November 6; he returned to Washington and made an oral statement, and on the 11th of November wrote out his report for the Department in due form.
  [Sidenote] Doubleday, "Forts Sumter and Moultrie," p. 19.
According to this report, while Colonel Gardner had been remiss in a few minor details, he had in reality been vigilant, loyal, and efficient in main and important matters. He had foreseen the coming danger, had advised the Government, and called for reënforcements; had recommended not only strengthening the garrison of Moultrie, but the effective occupation of both Sumter and Castle Pinckney; and had made an effort in good faith to remove the public arms and goods from their exposed situation in the arsenal in the city of Charleston, to the security of the fort. Though Southern in feeling and pro-slavery in sentiment, he was true to his oath and his flag; and had he been properly encouraged and supported by his Government, would evidently have merited no reproach for inefficiency or indifference.
  [Sidenote] 1860.
But the fatal entanglement of Buchanan's Administration with the slavery extremists had the double effect of weakening loyalty in army officers and building up rebellion among the Southern people. Instead of heeding the advice of Colonel Gardner to reënforce the forts, it removed him from command, and within two months the President submitted silently to the taunt of the South Carolina rebel commissioners that it was in punishment for his loyal effort to save the Government property. Whatever the motive may have been, the Government was now fully warned, as early as November 11, a week before the first secession jubilee in Charleston, and more than a month before the passage of the secession ordinance, of the imminence of the insurrection and danger to the forts. General Scott had warned it, Colonel Gardner had warned it, and now again Major Porter, its special and confidential agent, had not only repeated that warning, but his report had been made the basis of Government discussion in the change of commanders.
The action of the Government was unusually prompt. On November 11, as we have seen, Major Porter made his written report, and on the 13th he delivered to Major Robert Anderson in New York the order to take command of the forts and forces in Charleston harbor. Major Anderson, suitably qualified by meritorious service, age, and rank, was deemed especially acceptable for the position because he was a Kentuckian by birth, and related by marriage to a prominent family of Georgia. Such sympathies as might influence him were supposed to be with the South, and his appointment would not, therefore, grate harshly on the susceptibilities of the Charlestonians.
The statement, many times repeated, that he owned a plantation in the South is incorrect. He never owned a plantation in Georgia or anywhere else. On the death of his father he came into possession of a small number of slaves. These he liberated as soon as the proper papers could be executed and sent to him at his distant post; and he always afterwards helped them when they were in need and applied to him.[5]
  [Sidenote] F.J. Porter to Dawson. "Historical Magazine," January,   1872, pp. 37, 38.
The army headquarters being then in New York, Major Anderson on the same day called on General Scott, and in conversation with the veteran General-in-Chief learned that army affairs were being carried on at Washington by Secretary Floyd, without consulting him. Under these circumstances Scott did not deem himself authorized to interfere even by suggestion. Nevertheless, the whole Charleston question seems to have been fully discussed, and the relative strength of the forts, and the possible necessity of occupying Sumter commented upon in such manner as no doubt produced its effect in the subsequent action of Anderson. Major Anderson next went to Washington, and received the personal instructions of Secretary Floyd, and returning thereafter to New York, General Scott in that city gave him on November 15th formal written orders to proceed to Fort Moultrie and take command of the post.
---------- [1] His policy, frankly written in a friendly letter to a prominent nullifier, could scarcely provoke the most captious criticism:
"You have probably heard of the arrival of two or three companies at Charleston in the last six weeks, and you may hear that as many more have followed. There is nothing inconsistent with the President's message in these movements. The intention simply is that the forts in the harbor shall not be wrested from the United States.... The President, I presume, will stand on the defensive, thinking it better to discourage than to invite an attack--better to prevent than to repel one."--Lieut.-Gen. Winfield Scott, "Autobiography." Vol. I., p. 242.
[2] "All the lines of demarkation between the new Unions cannot be accurately drawn in advance, but many of them approximately may. Thus, looking to natural boundaries and commercial affinities, some of the following frontiers, after many waverings and conflicts, might perhaps become acknowledged and fixed:
"1. The Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic. 2. From Maryland along the crest of the Alleghany (perhaps the Blue Ridge) range of mountains, to some point on the coast of Florida. 3. The line from say the head of the Potomac to the west or north-west, which it will be most difficult to settle. 4. The crest of the Rocky Mountains.