U.S. Maj. Robert Anderson and S.C. Gov. Francis Pickens both received President Lincoln’s message that a large naval expedition was on its way to Charleston to resupply Fort Sumter with supplies, additional troops, and arms. As noted in our April 6 entry, Lincoln’s...
S.C. Gov. Francis Pickens’ 56th birthday was fraught with worry. U.S. Maj. Anderson refused to surrender Fort Sumter peacefully. Pickens did not want to initiate the Civil War, but nor could he allow Federal troops to hold one of his state’s principal military assets....
In a message drafted in his own handwriting, President Lincoln wrote to U.S. Maj. Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter saying: “I am directed by the President of the United States to notify you to expect an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only;...
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...
President Abraham Lincoln met with Republican governors who had been outspoken regarding the issue of Fort Sumter. No notes from that meeting remain, and historian Robert Rosen opines that we will never know for sure what transpired that day – though one might...
The merchant schooner Rhoda H. Shannon, which departed Boston on March 26 with a shipment of ice bound for Savannah, took a precipitous wrong turn the afternoon of April 3, a mistake its captain accredited to faulty navigational equipment. To make matters even worse,...
