150 Years Ago: Fort Sumter Surrenders

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At 2:30 p.m., on Saturday, April 13, 1861, Major Robert Anderson, commanding the Union garrison at Fort Sumter, surrendered to Confederate officials, ending a 34-hour bombardment.

The attack on Fort Sumter began the previous day, April 12, at 4:30 a.m.  With a relief expedition on the way to the fort -- some of the ships were already hovering just outside the harbor -- General P. G. T. Beauregard demanded the surrender of the fort.  There were some exchanges back and forth, but, in the end, the Civil War would begin here with Beauregard demanding a surrender that Anderson could not give without a fight.

A signal gun was fired at 4:30 a.m. and then the Confederates batteries that surrounded Sumter began their bombardment.  The puzzling thing to them was that the Union garrison was not firing back.  Anderson kept his men under cover, out of harm's way until daylight.  Even then, there was not much that he could do.

Fort Sumter sat on a man-made granite island in the middle of Charleston harbor.  Its walls were forty feet high and five feet thick.  It was designed to hold three tiers of guns.  The lower two tiers were in casements -- each gun was fully protected by thick masonry and fired through a small gunport, an embrasure.  The third tier was around the top of the fort on the barbette, completely in the open.

Unfortunately for Anderson, only 48 guns had been mounted in the unfinished fort.  The second tier was empty.  The casement guns in the lower tier, though fully protected, were the weakest.  These were 32-pounders and 42-pounders that could only fire solid shot which was ineffective against any of the Confederate batteries that were firing at the fort.  Anderson's strongest guns, Columbiads and eight-inch howitzers, were those that were most exposed.

Anderson's garrison was woefully undermanned.  He had 128 men, including 43 civilians, and he couldn't afford to lose any of them.  His biggest worry then was that Beauregard might attempt to send out the infantry and try to storm the fort after dark.  Manning the guns on the barbette was out of the question.  Anderson's men hunkered down and stuck to the ineffective casement guns.

The barbette guns were loaded though and were used in two incidents.  First, a sergeant crept up to the barbette and fired every gun that was aimed at Fort Moultrie, then hurried back downstairs.  Later, two sergeants went up top and fired a ten-inch Columbiad at Cummings Point.  It was a near miss, so they reloaded and tried another shot even though they couldn't move the 7.5-ton gun back into the proper firing position.  The recoil blew the huge gun in a backward somersault and sent it crashing down the stairs.

An English Whitworth gun on Morris Island blew big hunks out of the southeast corner of the fort before it finally ran out of ammunition.  Shell and red-hot shot set the wooden barracks on fire, and fire-fighting details worked furiously in the choking smoke with shells bursting above them.

Just outside the harbor, Captain Gustavus Fox, the mastermind of the relief expedition, had arrived.  He was going to supply the fort and wanted an escort.  Commander Stephen Rowan of the Pawnee refused.  He had orders to wait for the Powhatan and didn't want to risk starting a war.  No one knew that the war had already begun or that the Powhatan was on its way to Pensacola.  When it finally became evident that the battle had begun, the decision was made to wait on the Powhatan, then force their way in.  In the end, the absence of the ship did not matter; the seas were too rough to enter the harbor.

That night, the Confederate bombardment slowed.  They lobbed a shell at the fort every few minutes though just to keep everyone on their toes.  When daylight came on the 13th, the Confederate bombardment increased again, and the situation in the fort quickly went from bad to worse.  Supplies were already low.  Now they were short of water.  The officers' quarters were destroyed.  Fires broke out again and the casements filled with smoke.

The end was a little farcical.  Sometime around noon the flagstaff was shot down.  Lieutenant G. W. Snyder and Sergeant Peter Hart improvised a new one and mounted it to a gun carriage on the barbette.  The Confederates saw the flag go down, and Beauregard sent an aide to the fort under a flag of truce to offer assistance.  This was a tactful way of suggesting that it might be time to surrender.  The aide, Captain Stephen Lee, accompanied by two civilians, Porcher Miles and Roger Pryor, set out for the fort.  When they saw the flag hoisted again, they turned to go back to the shore.  Then the flag was lowered and a white flag was hoisted in its place.  They hurried to the fort to see what was going on.

From The Coming Fury by Bruce Catton:

"During the height of the contest, while Lieutenant Snyder and Sergeant Hart struggled to get the flag flying, and the gun crews stumbled through the smoke to maintain some sort of fire, a cannoneer in a lower-tier casement, going to the muzzle of his piece to reload, saw a strange fellow looking in the embrasure -- a burly civilian with a swarthy, piratical face, red sash and sword belt incongruously belted about his middle, a naked sword with white flag knotted about the blade gripped in one hand -- altogether a wholly improbable-looking figure.  This man announced that he was Colonel Wigfall, recently United States Senator from Texas, now an aide to General Beauregard; he wanted to see Major Anderson, and he wanted even more to get safely inside the fort because he was at the moment squarely in the line of Confederate fire -- 'Damn it, they are firing at me from Fort Moultrie.'  After a certain amount of discussion he was led to Major Anderson...Colonel Wigfall addressed the Federal commander with bluff heartiness:

"'Major Anderson, I come from General Beauregard. It is time to put a stop to this, sir. The flames are raging all around you and you have defended your flag gallantly. Will you evacuate, sir?'

"The major was ready to call it quits...Anderson said he would surrender on the terms originally proposed -- that he be allowed to salute his flag and then, with all the honors of war, take his men and their personal property back to New York. Wigfall said that this was a deal: 'Lower your flag, and the firing will cease. I will see General Beauregard and you military men will arrange all the terms.'...Down came the United States flag, and up went the white flag of surrender.

At this point Captain Lee and his two civilian companions got to the fort. Presented to Major Anderson, Lee said that Beauregard had sent them to offer assistance, if assistance happened to be needed, and to find out what all of this raising and lowering of flags meant. Anderson, puzzled, explained that he had just surrendered to Colonel Wigfall, whereupon his three visitors exchanged baffled looks; then they explained that although Wigfall did belong to Beauregard's staff, he had not seen the general for two days and had come to the fort strictly on his own hook. Anderson muttered: 'Gentlemen, this is a very awkward business,' which stated the case accurately; he had just surrendered to a man who had no authority either to demand or to receive a surrender. Anderson ordered the white flag hauled down and the national flag raised; the fighting would be resumed."

But it all worked out in the end.  Lee suggested a ceasefire until he could get in touch with Beauregard.  Anderson wrote out his understanding of the surrender terms he had made with Wigfall, and Lee hurried off to see Beauregard.  He returned a couple of hours later and the surrender was official.  The fighting was over, at least here in Charleston harbor.

150 Years Ago: WAR!

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At 4:30 a.m. on Friday, April 12, 1861, the Civil War began in the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, when Confederate artillery opened fire on Fort Sumter.  The long, chaotic, bloody Civil War started in a very civilized, formal process.

Major Robert Anderson commanded a small garrison of U.S.Army troops at Fort Sumter, a tiny speck of federal authority in a state that had seceded and proclaimed itself a new republic.  Anderson's garrison was short of supplies, but they were on the way.  President Abraham Lincoln had finally decided to resupply the fort.

But first, Lincoln had written to South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens to inform him that he was sending provisions to the fort.  If the Confederates wanted to start a war by opposing the resupply expedition that was up to them.  Captain Gustavus Fox remarked later that it had seemed important to Lincoln that South Carolina should "should stand before the civilized world as having fired upon bread."

With the relief expedition on the way, orders went down the chain of command from the Confederate government in Montgomery, Alabama, to General P. G. T. Beauregard, the commander of the artillery forces arrayed against Fort Sumter.  Beauregard was to demand the fort's surrender; if refused, he was to reduce it.

On April 11, the previous day, Beauregard had written his demand for the fort's surrender and sent three aides by boat out to the middle of the harbor to present it to Anderson.  Anderson refused, writing out his own reply to give to Beauregard.  As the aides were leaving Fort Sumter, Anderson made the remark that he would be starved out within days.  Perhaps both sides could work something out to avert a war.  The aides included the remark in their report back to Beauregard.

The whole business went up the chain to Montgomery and back down to Beauregard again.  Could he get some assurance from Anderson as to when he might surrender.  The trio of aides, joined this time by Virginia Congressman Roger Pryor, went back out to the fort.  They arrived there just after midnight on April 12.  They met with Anderson, but did not get the unequivocal reply they needed.

Anderson would evacuate the fort on April 15 if the Confederates did not open fire sooner, or if they did not seem about to commit some hostile act, or if Anderson did not receive provisions or new instructions from his government.  The trio did not feel the need to go back to Beauregard to get his decision.  They conferred, and, within minutes, gave a formal reply to Anderson:

"By authority of Brigadier General Beauregard, commanding the Provisional Forces of the Confederate States, we have the honor to notify you that he will open the fire of his batteries on Fort Sumter in one hour from this time."

It was just then 3:20 a.m.

Anderson walked the Southerners back out to the wharf, shook hands with them, and said, "If we never meet in this world again, God grant that we may meet in the next."

At 4:30 a.m., a few minutes late, a gun was fired at Fort Johnson, signaling the forts that ringed Charleston harbor to begin the bombardment of Fort Sumter.  There was much postwar argument about who had fired the first shot of the war, and if this signal gun shot counted.  Edmund Ruffin, one of the key leaders of the secession movement, fired one of the first shots of the war and sentimentally was credited with the honor by most.  Charleston residents turned out to watch the show and cheered as the fort was battered.  The bombardment would continue throughout the day and into the next one.  The Civil War had begun.

Also on this date, at Pensacola, Florida, U.S. troops aboard the Brooklyn were finally landed to reinforce Fort Pickens.  Braxton Bragg, commanding the Confederate forces there, could do nothing to stop the landings.  The fort was now safely in Union hands and would remain that way throughout the war.

150 Years Ago: Hurlbut and Lamon Visit Charleston

On Sunday, March 24, 1861, Lincoln's other two emissaries, Stephen Hurlbut and Ward Lamon, both old friends of Lincoln's, arrive in Charleston.  Hurlbut and Lamon traveled together, but parted ways once they reached the city.

Hurlbut's mission was to take the pulse of the people of Charleston and of South Carolina.  After meeting with James Petigru, one of the few Union men still in the state, Hurlbut reported back to Lincoln that "there is positively nothing to appeal to -- the sentiment of national patriotism, always feeble in Carolina, has been extinguished and over-ridden."

Hurlbut thought that the situation was hopeless.  Nothing would satisfy Charlestonians except surrender of the fort and recognition of South Carolina's independence.

Lamon met with Governor Francis Pickens and General P. G. T. Beauregard, who commanded the troops arrayed against Fort Sumter.  Lamon probably complicated the already complicated situation.  He was seen by both Southern leaders as the president's authorized agent and gave both men the idea that the fort might soon be surrendered.

Lamon's report to Lincoln was as bleak as Hurlbut's.  He brought back a message from Pickens that "nothing can prevent war except the acquiescence of the President of the United States in secession and his unalterable resolve not to attempt any reinforcement of the Southern forts."

150 Years Ago: Fox at Charleston

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President Abraham Lincoln really wanted to hang on to Fort Sumter if he could, especially since he had promised to do so in his inaugural address.  On one hand, his cabinet was almost unanimously for giving up the fort; on the other, public opinion was strongly against giving up the fort without a fight and growing stronger and louder by the day.  Lincoln needed more information and sent three men to Charleston to report back on the situation there.

The first of these men was Captain Gustavus Fox.  He met with Lincoln on this date, Tuesday, March 19, 1861, then immediately left for Charleston.  He arrived two days later and met with Governor Francis Pickens to explain his mission.  Pickens allowed him to travel to the fort to meet with Major Robert Anderson, the commander of the garrison there.

Anderson thought it was too late, that to relieve him now would be a massive undertaking.  He also made it clear that he was running low on supplies and could not stay in the fort past April 15.  Fox later insisted that he did not tell Anderson about his plan to use small boats to relieve the fort at night, but apparently enough hints were dropped that Anderson figured it out on his own.

March 3, 1861: Beauregard Takes Command

On Sunday, March 3, 1861, Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, to assume command of the troops there.  He went straight to work perfecting the placement of the guns around the harbor.  Beauregard's strategy was mainly defensive, not to pile on the guns aimed at Fort Sumter, but to seal off the harbor so that the tiny garrison could not be reinforced.

March 1, 1861: P. G. T. Beauregard

On Friday, March 1, 1861, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard accepted a position as brigadier general in the Confederate Army and was assigned to command in Charleston, South Carolina.

Beauregard was born in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, on May 28, 1818.  He graduated second in his class at West Point in 1838.  During the Mexican War, he was wounded twice and received two brevets for gallantry while serving as an engineer in General Winfield Scott's army.  He spent most of his postwar military career constructing coastal defenses, but served as the superintendent at West Point for a few days in January 1861 before being removed because of his outspoken Southern views.  After Louisiana left the Union, Beauregard followed, resigning his U.S. Army commission on February 20. 

During Beauregard's time as a cadet at West Point, Robert Anderson, who now commanded the Federal garrison at Fort Sumter, had been an artillery instructor.  Beauregard had shown such talent that Anderson made him an assistant instructor.

January 9, 1861: War Is Narrowly Averted

The Civil War almost began on Wednesday, January 9, 1861, when the Star of the West was fired upon in Charleston harbor.

The Star of the West, a merchant steamer full of supplies and reinforcements for Fort Sumter which had set sail from New York on January 5, arrived at the entrance to Charleston harbor around midnight.  As soon as there was enough light to see, the ship headed into the harbor.

Gunners on Morris Island, cadets from the Citadel, began firing at the ship.  One shot smashed into the side of the Star of the West.  A steamer flying the U.S. flag and carrying U.S. troops had been fired upon and hit.

The commander at Fort Sumter, Major Robert Anderson, didn't know what was going on.  He was unaware that a relief ship was even on the way, but he and his men could see that the Charlestonians were preparing for something.  The War Department had sent a telegraph explaining the situation and giving him orders to return fire "should a fire, likely to prove injurious, be opened upon any vessel bringing up re-enforcements or supplies, or upon row-boats within the reach of your guns."  The message never reached Anderson and now he held his fire and certainly averted a war.  With Fort Sumter's guns silent the Star of the West had no choice but to turn around and head back out to open sea.

The garrison at Fort Sumter was in an uproar.  The officers and men were furious that Anderson had not returned fire.  Anderson met with the officers and they agreed to write to Governor Francis Pickens.  If he had authorized the attack, Anderson might close down the harbor.

Pickens replied that South Carolina was an independent nation and that putting troops in Fort Sumter and then sending in reinforcements was an act of aggression.  The firing was justified.  If Anderson must now use his guns to close down the harbor, the responsibility was his own.

Pickens added, "Your position in this harbor has been tolerated by the the authorities of the State, and...it is not perceived how far the conduct which you propose to adopt can find a parallel in the history of any country, or be reconciled with any other purpose of your Government than that of imposing upon this State the condition of a conquered province.

Also on this date, Mississippi became the first state to follow South Carolina out of the Union.  A state convention in Mississippi voted for secession 84-to-15.

January 8, 1861

On Tuesday, January 8, 1861, Secretary of the Interior Jacob Thompson of Mississippi resigned.  He had been the last Southerner left in Buchanan's cabinet.  One of his last acts in Washington was to telegraph the authorities in Charleston to let them know that the Star of the West was coming with reinforcements and supplies for Fort Sumter.

Also on this date, in Florida, U.S. troops at Fort Barrancas, guarding the entrance to Pensacola Harbor, fired upon and drove away a raiding party.  Fort Mason at St. Augustine had been seized the day before.

January 5, 1861: The Star of the West Sets Sail

On Saturday, January 5, 1861, in New York, the Star of the West, a merchant vessel, sailed for Fort Sumter with supplies and 250 troops.

The original plan called for the Brooklyn to be used.  The Brooklyn, a 2000-ton, propeller-driven warship, boasted 22 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbores and two rifled pivot guns.  It could muscle its way into Charleston harbor if necessary.

But the plan changed.  The War Department decided to try speed and secrecy instead.

The Star of the West, a side-wheel merchant steamer normally on a New York-to-New Orleans run, was chartered for $1250 a day.  The soldiers and supplies were quietly loaded.  To the casual observer the steamer appeared to be leaving on its regular run.

Officials in Charleston got the news almost immediately.  By the time the Star of the West would arrive at Charleston harbor, Major Robert Anderson and the garrison at Fort Sumter would be the only ones who didn't know what was going on.

Also on this date, in Alabama, which hadn't yet left the Union, state authorities captured Forts Morgan and Gaines at Mobile Bay without resistance.

December 26, 1860: Anderson Moves to Fort Sumter

On Wednesday, December 26, 1860, Major Robert Anderson moved his small garrison from Fort Moultrie to the unfinished Fort Sumter.

Anderson had been pressing the War Department for orders since taking command of the Charleston garrison in mid-November.  About all he had been told was that he could defend himself if attacked.  Anderson's main concern was Fort Sumter.  It sat on a man-made granite island in the middle of the mouth of Charleston harbor and was empty except for some civilian workmen.  It could be easily captured by South Carolina militia, and would give them complete control of the harbor, leaving Washington unable to send supplies and reinforcements to the garrison.

Finally, Secretary of War John B. Floyd sent Major Don Carlos Buell to Charleston to give Anderson some instruction.  The orders -- "a broad explanation of general policy rather than explicit orders" -- were given to Buell verbally.

On December 11, once he had visited the garrison and made his own appraisal, Buell put Anderson's orders in writing.  Anderson was not to do anything to provoke the people of Charleston, but, if attacked, he could move his men into whichever fort was the most defensible.  Buell went farther:  "You are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act."  As Charleston was a hotbed of "tangible evidence," Anderson, if he interpreted his orders liberally, now had permission to move to Fort Sumter whenever he thought necessary.

After dark on December 26, Anderson evacuated Fort Moultrie.  The wives and children of the enlisted men were transported to Fort Johnson, on the south side of the harbor.  The two small companies of the garrison marched down to the wharf and boarded boats that took them to Fort Sumter.

Anderson's move touched off a major crisis.  After declaring its independence, South Carolina had sent a group of commissioners to Washington to negotiate for the Charleston forts and arsenal.  These commissioners reached Washington at about the same time as the news of Anderson's move.  The group was indignant, accusing President Buchanan of breaking the agreement he had reached earlier with the South Carolina congressmen.  They demanded that Anderson be ordered to return to Fort Moultie.  Buchanan almost capitulated, but a few cabinet meetings strengthened his resolve and he sent the commissioners on their way.  He even decided to reinforce Anderson.

South Carolina authorities quickly took possession of the now empty Fort Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, the arsenal, the customs house and the post office.  Every Federal official in the state, from judges to postmaster, resigned.

"The row is fast and furious now.  They say if we had been left out in the cold alone, we might have sulked a while, but back we would have had to go, and would merely have fretted and fumed and quarreled among ourselves.  We needed a little wholesome neglect.  Anderson had blocked that game, but now our sister States have joined us and we are strong.  I give the condensed essence of the table talk:  'Anderson has united the Cotton States.  Now for Virginia!'  Those who want a row are in high glee.  Those who dread it are glum and thoughtful enough."  -- Mary Boykin Chesnut

December 20, 1860: Secession

So now the nation was in a period of transition.  Abraham Lincoln would be the next president of the United States, but would not take office until March 4, 1861.  President James Buchanan's term was coming to an end.  He was a lame duck just marking time.

Even before the election, fire-eaters (and even much more moderate men) in the South recognized what Lincoln's election would mean and began threatening secession if the election did not go as they wanted.  Before the election, such talk was dismissed as mere idle threats.  Now, with Lincoln's election an accomplished fact, the talk of secession was taken more seriously.

From The Coming Fury by Bruce Catton:

But there was still deep confusion and bewilderment, and in such times men of intense singleness of purpose can often drive through to their chosen goal and compel their fellows to trail along after them. The Southern men who, in November of 1860, proposed secession and the creation of a new nation had the advantage of knowing precisely what they wanted and of standing for immediate, emotion-releasing action. Those who counseled delay and full exploration of the possibilities of compromise were using the kind of talk that should have been (but was not) voiced in the presidential campaign; now it came too late, it had no force in it, and state and regional patriotism were generating a pressure that made it sound empty.

Lincoln had not advocated interfering with slavery in the states where it already existed. What put him at odds with the South was his stance on slavery in the territories. Lincoln vehemently opposed any expansion of slavery; if it could be contained where it was, it would eventually wither and die.  Some of those who wanted secession envisioned a new nation that stretched across the South and on into Cuba and Central and South America.

Also, to quote Alexander Stephens, Lincoln's election would "put the institutions of nearly half the states under the ban of public opinion and natural condemnation."  The mere existence of an administration hostile to slavery would spell eventual doom for the institution.

It had reached the point where Lincoln was already considering how to maintain the Union:  "My own impression is, at present (leaving myself room to modify the opinion, if upon a further investigation I should see fit to do so) that this government possesses both the authority and the power to maintain its own integrity.  That however is not the ugly point of the matter.  The ugly part is the necessity of keeping the government together by force, as ours should be a government of fraternity."

Secession threats were nothing new.  They had come at various times as different crises had arisen.  The last serious threat of secession had come in 1850 when the proposed admission of California and New Mexico to the Union as free states had caused regional strife.  Southern states sent delegates to a convention in Nashville.  It came to nothing, defused by the Compromise of 1850, but South Carolina delegates left Nashville convinced that cooperative action with other slave states was not the answer.  At the next crisis they would act alone and the other slave states would be forced to follow their lead.

This was the crisis and South Carolina was ready to act.  On October 12, 1860, Governor William H. Gist called the South Carolina legislature into special session.  This was all routine.  South Carolina was the only state whose people did not vote in presidential elections; the legislature decided where the state's electoral vote would go.  But Governor Gist advised the legislature to remain in session until the result of the election was known.  If Lincoln was elected, the legislature was advised to summon a state convention to consider secession.

The convention was called to order on December 17 in the state capital, Columbia.  Smallpox was rampant in the city at the time and the delegates voted to reconvene in Charleston and adjourned.  They arrived in Charleston the following afternoon. On Thursday, December 20, 1860, the convention heard the report from the Committee to Prepare an Ordinance of Secession:

We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention of the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified, and also all Acts and parts of Acts, of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of 'The United States of America,' is hereby dissolved.

There was no debate. The motion was put to a vote and passed 169-0.

As predicted, the other Deep South states followed South Carolina's lead. Mississippi seceded on January 9, 1861. Florida seceded the following day, and Alabama the day after that. Georgia seceded on January 19, Louisiana on January 26 and Texas on February 1.

December 8, 1860: Maintaining the Status Quo

On Saturday, December 8, 1860, most of South Carolina's Congressional delegation met with President James Buchanan.  They worked out an agreement to keep the federal military presence in the state as it was, that the garrison at Fort Moultrie in Charleston would be neither reinforced nor attacked.

The agreement was put in writing the next day in a letter from the South Carolina Congressmen to Buchanan:

"In compliance with our statement to you yesterday, we now express to you our strong convictions that neither the constituted authorities nor any body of the people of the State of South Carolina will either attack or molest the U.S. Forts in the harbor of Charleston previously to the action of the convention, and we hope & believe not until an offer has been made through an accredited Representative to negotiate for an amicable arrangement of all matters between the State and the Federal government, provided that no reinforcements shall be sent into these Forts & their relative military status remains as at present."

November 15, 1860: Anderson Takes Command in Charleston

On Thursday, November 15, 1860, Major Robert Anderson took command of the small garrison at Charleston, South Carolina.  Anderson replaced Colonel John L. Gardner of Massachusetts.

The Charleston garrison -- 10 officers and 64 enlisted men of Companies E and H of the U.S. First Artillery and the regimental band -- were all at Fort Moultrie, then the only active military base in the harbor.  The other forts were either obsolete or unfinished.

South Carolina state authorities put their secession plans in motion early in November of 1860, almost immediately upon the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the federal property in the state, everything from the forts that guarded Charleston harbor to the courthouses and post offices, quickly became a major issue.  The state's leaders wanted the United States to vacate the property or at least negotiate a sale price. 

The Buchanan War Department was trying to placate the Charlestonians by replacing Gardner with Anderson, a Kentuckian.  Gardner had started a major row by attempting to move a supply of arms from the Federal arsenal in the town to Fort Moultrie.  On November 7, he sent an officer ashore with a boat to move the arms, but a large crowd gathered at the wharf to prevent the transfer.  Soon, most of Charleston was protesting to Washington.

Anderson, 56, was a 35-year veteran of the army.  He graduated from West Point in 1825, 15th in his class.  He fought in the Black Hawk and Seminole Wars, then in the Mexican War where he was wounded at Molino Del Rey.  In peace time, he served on War Department boards and translated several French texts on artillery into West Point instruction manuals.  He had a reputation as an industrious and energetic officer. 

April 23, 1860: The Democratic Convention

On Monday, April 23, 1860, the Democratic National Convention convened at South Carolina Institute Hall in Charleston to choose their nominee for president of the United States.  Some of the delegates hoped the party could unite around an electable moderate -- Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois was the clear favorite -- but slavery, particularly the issue of slavery in the territories, made that impossible.

Douglas was unacceptable to most of the Southern delegates and a small minority, the fire-eating secessionists believed they could get everything they wanted, a new nation, if the party lost the election.

Historian Bruce Catton, in The Coming Storm, says of Douglas that he "was a man about whom no one could be indifferent.  He was either a remorseless scheming politician or a hero defending the eternal truth, the appraisal depending partly on the observer's point of view and partly on what Douglas himself was up to at the moment...Very few men either hated or admired him just a little.  A passionate man himself, he evoked passion in others, in his friends and in his enemies."

Slavery in the territories became the major issue in American politics following the Dred Scott decision.  Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declared in his opinion that Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in a territory.  The Fifth Amendment protected persons from being deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process.  Slaves were no different than any other property thus a ban on slavery was unconstitutional.  "And if Congress itself cannot do this—if it is beyond the powers conferred on the Federal Government—it will be admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a territorial government to exercise them. It could confer no power on any local government, established by its authority, to violate the provisions of the Constitution."

Republicans declared this opinion to be an obiter dictum -- an opinion voiced by a judge that has only incidental bearing on the case in question and is therefore not binding.  They refused to recognize the ruling as a binding precedent and vowed to "reconstitute" the Court after winning the presidency in 1860.

Democrats were overjoyed with the ruling.  Southern Democrats felt vindicated that "Southern opinion upon the subject of Southern slavery...is now the supreme law of the land."  Northern Democrats called Taney's opinion "the funeral sermon of Black Republicanism," but were later discomfited to realize that slave property could never be excluded from a territory.

Douglas, a proponent of popular sovereignty, jumped into the fray with a speech at Springfield, Illinois, in June 1857.  He declared that the right of property in slaves was "a barren and worthless right" if the people of territory did not want it, if it was not "sustained, protected and enforced by appropriate police regulations and local legislation."

Lincoln began speaking of a pro-slavery conspiracy that was trying to "push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States," and began trying to paint Douglas as part of the conspiracy.  At Freeport, Illinois, during their senatorial debates in 1858, Lincoln pressed Douglas on the contradiction between Dred Scott and popular sovereignty.  Could the people of a territory exclude slavery if they wished?  From James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom...

Folklore history has portrayed this question as the stone that slew Goliath. If Douglas answered No, he alienated Illinois voters and jeopardized his re-election to the Senate.  If he answered Yes, he alienated the South and lost their support for the presidency in 1860.  The problem with this thesis is that Douglas had already confronted the issue many times.  Lincoln knew how he would answer the question:  "He will instantly take ground that slavery can not actually exist in the territories, unless the people desire it, and so give it protective territorial legislation.  If this offends the South he will let it offend them; as at all events he means to hold on to his chances in Illinois...He cares nothing for the South -- he knows he is already dead there" because of his opposition to Lecompton.  Lincoln asked the question anyway; Douglas answered as expected.  His answer became famous in retrospect as the Freeport doctrine.

Lincoln was right.  Douglas was already dead in the South because of Lecompton.  Faced with an estimated two-to-one majority of free-soil settlers, the pro-slavery legislature in Kansas set up a rigged constitutional convention.  Delegates would be elected, but pro-slavery sheriffs were charged with registering voters and pro-slavery county commissioners would choose judges of elections.  Free-soilers refused to participate in this farce.  With only 2200 of 9250 registered voters participating, pro-slavery delegates won all the seats to the constitutional convention at Lecompton.  They sent their pro-slavery constitution and a petition for statehood to Congress without a referendum.

The Lecompton constitution caused such an uproar that the convention had to relent.  They now mandated a referendum on two alternative slavery clauses -- "Constitution with Slavery" or "Constitution with no Slavery."  This seemed fair except that the "no Slavery" clause declared that "the right of property in slaves now in this Territory shall in no manner be interfered with."  It merely prohibited the future importation of slaves.  Douglas became one of the fiercest opponents of the Lecompton scullduggery, forever tarnishing his relationship with Southern Democrats.

In January 1860, the Alabama Democratic convention instructed its delegates to walk out of the national convention if the party refused to adopt a platform pledging a federal slave code for the territories.  Other lower-South conventions soon followed suit.  Jefferson Davis laid the groundwork in a series of resolutions to the Senate.

The showdown came to the platform committee where each state had one vote.  California and Oregon joined the slave states to provide a majority of 17 to 16 for a slave-code plank.  The minority reaffirmed the party's 1856 platform endorsing popular sovereignty and adding a pledge to obey Taney's Supreme Court decision.  This was not good enough for the South.  The whole point of Douglas's own Freeport doctrine was that the Court decision could not enforce itself.  Two days of partisan wrangling ensued with southerners as determined to pass a slave-code plank as Douglas men were to block one.  Finally, the Douglas men prevailed, passing the minority platform 165 to 138.  Free states voted for it 154 to 30.  Slave states voted against it 11 to 108.  Fifty delegates from the lower-South states promptly walked out of the convention.

Douglas's supporters were at first elated with the walk-out.  With so many of the senator's enemies gone, it would be easy to get enough votes from the delegates that remained.  Then Caleb Cushing, the chairman and no friend of Douglas, ruled that whoever was nominated must get the votes of two-thirds of the original delegation, not just those that remained.  202 votes were needed.  For three days and 57 ballots, Douglas never got more than 152 1/2 votes.  James Guthrie of Kentucky, Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia, Joseph Lane of Oregon, Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee and others received votes.  Finally, on May 3, the delegates called it quits and adjourned the convention.  They would reconvene in Baltimore on June 18.

Meanwhile, the Southern delegates who had walked out met, on May 1, in Military Hall and declared themselves the real Democratic convention.  The majority group they had deserted was the "rump convention."  They appointed a chairman, Senator James Bayard of Delaware, and passed a slave-code platform.  Then they sat back to see what the "rump convention" would do.  Most were hoping for Douglas to remove his name from consideration so that a more palatable candidate could be selected.  Barring that, they would choose their own nominee.  When the "rump convention" adjourned, they were at a loss and also adjourned.