Mission to Relieve Fort Sumter

By John D. Pelzer

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For three long months, Major Robert Anderson and his besieged troops waited forreinforcements at Fort Sumter. Back in Washington, Union navalofficer Gustavus Foxraced against time to organize just such a mission.

The Union soldiers saw no one as they marched out of Fort Moultrie just after sunset on December 26, 1860, and made their way through the tiny town of Moultrieville, South Carolina, to the sea wall where their bobbing boats were moored. The election one month before of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States had caused a sense of crisis within the Federal garrison at Fort Moultrie. In the aftermath of the election, South Carolina had seceded from the Union, and the Northern soldiers knew it was only a matter of time before South Carolina asserted its claim to Fort Moultrie and the other forts guarding the approaches to Charleston Harbor.

The decision to abandon Fort Moultrie and withdraw its garrison to the more defensible Fort Sumter had not been an easy one for the fort’s commander, Major Robert Anderson. The 56-year-old Kentuckian had taken command of Fort Moultrie only a month before. Officials in Washington reasoned that Anderson, a native Southerner, would do nothing to provoke war.

Despite his Kentucky birth, Anderson was loyal to the Union and determined to do his duty. He became convinced that his command was vulnerable inside Fort Moultrie and that the best thing to do was to move the garrison to Fort Sumter, a large masonry fort on an artificial island overlooking the seaward approaches to Charleston. Anderson knew that if he were going to make the move he needed to do it soon. For two days, rumors had circulated that the rebellious South Carolinians had stationed a steamer in the waters off Charleston Harbor to prevent the Federal troops from escaping. Anderson desperately sought authorization from Washington to withdraw his command to Fort Sumter. “I think I could…were I to receive instructions so to do, throw my garrison into that work,” Anderson wrote to Secretary of War Simon Cameron.

Despite the urgency of his request, Anderson received no immediate response from Washington. Finally, on his own initiative and without orders, he withdrew his men to the island fortress on the day after Christmas 1860. “It was my solemn duty to move my command from a fort which we could not have held longer than forty-eight or sixty hours, to this one, where my power of resistance is increased to a very great degree,” he reported to Washington.

The arrival of Anderson and his men certainly took the occupants of the fort by surprise. The civilian workmen at Fort Sumter were just settling down for the evening when a Union landing party appeared at their door. The Northern soldiers wasted no time securing their hold on the fort. There were doubts as to the true loyalty of many of Sumter’s civilian workers, and one of the first acts of Anderson’s men was to remove them from the fort. “There was no parleying, no explaining; nothing but stern commands, silent astonishment, and prompt obedience,” wrote Captain James Chester of the 3rd U.S. Artillery about the removal of the civilians. “The workmen were on the wharf, outside the fort, before they were certain whether their captors were secessionists or Yankees.”

Anderson’s move to Fort Sumter had its drawbacks for the Union garrison. In the hasty evacuation of Fort Moultrie, most of Anderson’s supplies had to be left behind. The withdrawal forced Anderson, as he later wrote to Washington, “to sacrifice the greater part of my stores as it is now too late to attempt their removal.” The stage was set for a confrontation at Fort Sumter that no one wanted.

The Union soldiers were well-protected in the fort, but they could only hold out as long as their supplies lasted. “We have one [month's] supply of hospital stores and about four months’ supply of provisions for my command,” Anderson reported to Washington about the situation at Fort Sumter. If Anderson and his men were to hold the fort for long against the Southerners, they would soon have to receive supplies and reinforcements.

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