Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy, gave orders that two warships, the USS Powhatan and USS Pawnee, along with the steamer USS Pocahontas and USS Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane, were to provision Fort Sumter. Another steamer, the Baltic, carried about 200 soldiers from the 2nd U.S. Artillery. Three tugboats were ordered to help the reinforcements land at the fort. Capt. Samuel Mercer was given command of the expedition.
Yet there was more secretly going on behind the scenes…
