America’s Civil War: Union’s Mission to Relieve Fort Sumter

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Efforts to do so were both halfhearted and slow in coming. On the evening of Saturday, January 5, 1861, a force of 200 men, under the command of U.S. Army Lieutenant Charles R. Wood, boarded the steamer Star of the West at Governor’s Island in New York Harbor and immediately sailed for Charleston. Four days later, Star of the West approached within two miles of Fort Sumter before Southerners opened fire from a masked battery at the north end of Morris Island. A brisk fire was kept up on us by the battery as long as we remained within range, but, fortunately, without damage to us, Wood later said in his report about the unsuccessful effort to reach Fort Sumter.

Union Captain Abner Doubleday watched the entire encounter through his spyglass from inside Fort Sumter. He first noticed Star of the West when she passed over the bar at the entrance to Charleston Harbor just after first daylight. Doubleday immediately notified Anderson, who ordered Fort Sumter’s barbette guns to be manned. By the time Doubleday’s men were in position, however, the Southern guns at Fort Moultrie had already opened fire on the approaching relief ship.

Despite the drama taking place before his eyes, Doubleday could do little to aid the Northern steamer. Anderson had ordered the guns to be manned but had not authorized them to fire on Fort Moultrie. Without supporting fire from the fort, Wood reluctantly ordered Star of the West to withdraw. Finding it impossible to take my command to Fort Sumter, I was obliged most reluctantly to turn about and to try and make my way out of the harbor, Wood later reported. This, too, Doubleday witnessed through his spyglass, reporting that Star of the West turned about and steamed seaward.

Following the failure of Star of the West to reach the fort, indecisive officials in Washington vacillated over what policy to pursue. Fearing further efforts would provoke intense Confederate retaliation, little was done to reinforce and resupply Anderson’s men.

In February, U.S. Navy Captain James Ward proposed a plan for several light-draft steamers loaded with men and provisions to run past the Confederate guns and land at Fort Sumter. It was a daring plan that called for Ward and his men to abandon their steamers and join Anderson’s beleaguered garrison inside Fort Sumter. He proposed to employ four or more small steamers belonging to the U.S. Coastal Survey to make the landing.

Many officials in Washington felt that Ward’s plan had every prospect of success. Nonetheless, outgoing President James Buchanan, fearing the operation might provoke a Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, refused to authorize the plan. We have the opinion of General [Winfield] Scott that he has no doubt that Captain Ward at that time would have succeeded with his proposed expedition, Secretary of War Cameron reported to Lincoln, but was not allowed by the late President to attempt the execution of the plan.

Not everyone accepted the governmental inaction. Among the supporters of firm action was a former U.S. naval officer named Gustavus V. Fox. Born in Massachusetts in 1821, Fox entered the Navy as a midshipman in 1838. His subsequent service, including duty on coastal survey ships and during the Mexican War, proved him to be an able officer. Nonetheless, Fox left the Navy in 1856 with the rank of lieutenant to enter the wool-manufacturing business. Despite his early departure from the Navy, Fox retained a good reputation among military authorities in Washington. General Scott, for one, described him as an ex-officer of the Navy, a gentleman of high standing, as well as possessed of extraordinary nautical ability.

Fox’s plan to relieve Fort Sumter was a straightforward one. He proposed to anchor three small warships off Charleston Harbor near the entrance to Swash Channel, about four miles from the beleaguered fort. To avoid the obstructions at the harbor’s entrance, soldiers and provisions would be transferred from a large, oceangoing steamer to small, armed launches that would be towed to Fort Sumter by three steam tugs that were to accompany the expedition from New York.

Tags: 19th Century, America's Civil War, American Civil War, Historical Conflicts

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