President on the threshold: What means have I at command wherewith to compel obedience to the laws?' Now, the War Department had, for nearly eight years prior to the last few weeks, been directed successively by Jefferson Davis and John B. Floyd. The better portion of our little army had been ordered by Floyd to Texas, and there put under the command of Gen. Twiggs, by whom it had already been betrayed into the hands of his fellow-traitors. The arms of the Union had been sedulously transferred by Floyd from the Northern to the Southern arsenals. The most effective portion of the Navy had, in like manner, been dispersed over distant seas. But, so early as the 21st of March, at the close of a long and exciting Cabinet session, it appears to have been definitively settled that Fort Sumter was not to be surrendered without a struggle; and, though Col. G. W. Lay, an Aid of Gen. Scott, had visited Charles

2 The New York Herald of April 9th has a dispatch from its Washington correspondent, confirming one sent twenty-four hours earlier to announce the determination of the Executive to provision Fort Sumter, which thus explains the negotiations, and the seeming hesitation, if not vacillation, of March :

"The peace policy of the Administration has been taken advantage of by the South, while, at the same time, their representatives have been here begging the President to keep hands off. While he was holding back, in the hope that a forbearing disposition, on the part of the authorities of the seceded States, would be manifested, to his great surprise, he found that, instead of peace, they were investing every fort and navy yard with Rebel troops and fortifications, and actually preparing to make war upon the Federal Government. Not only this, but, while the Administration was yielding to the cry against coërcion, for the purpose, if possible, of averting the calamity of civil war, the very men who were loudest against coërcion were preparing for it; the Government was losing strength with the people; and the President and his Cabinet were charged with being imbecile and false to the high trust conferred upon them.

"At last, they have determined to enforce the

2

ton on the 20th, and had a long interview with Gov. Pickens and Gen. Beauregard, with reference, it was said, to the terms on which Fort Sumter should be evacuated, if evacuated at all, the 25th brought to Charleston Col. Ward H. Lamon, a confidential agent of the President, who, after an interview with the Confederate authorities, was permitted to visit the fort, and hold unrestricted intercourse with Major Anderson, who apprised the Government through him that their scanty stock of provisions would suffice his little garrison only till the middle of April. Col. Lamon returned immediately to Washington, and was said to have reported there, that, in Major Anderson's opinion as well as in his own, the relief of the fortress was impracticable.

By this time, however, very decided activity began to be manifest in the Navy Yards still held by the Union. Such ships of war as were

laws, and to do it vigorously; but not in an aggressive spirit. When the Administration determined to order Major Anderson out of Fort Sumter, some days since, they also determined to do so on one condition: namely, that the fort and the property in it should not be molested, but allowed to remain as it is. The authorities of the Confederacy would not agree to this, but manifested a disposition to get possession of the fort and United States property therein. The Government would not submit to any such humiliation.

The

"It was immediately determined to keep Major Anderson in Fort Sumter, and to supply him with provisions forthwith. ***There is no desire to put additional men into the fort, unless resistance is offered to the attempt to furnish Major Anderson with supplies. fleet will not approach Charleston with hostile intent; but, in view of the great military preparations about Fort Sumter, the supply vessels will go prepared to reply promptly to any resistance of a warlike character that may be offered to a peaceful approach to the fort. The responsibility of opening the war will be thrown upon the parties who set themselves in defiance to the Government. It is sincerely hoped, by the Federal authorities here, that the leaders of the secessionists will not open their batteries."

at hand were rapidly fitted for service and put into commission; while several swift ocean steamers of the largest size were hurriedly loaded with provisions, munitions, and forage. By the 6th or 7th of April, nearly a dozen of these vessels had left New York and other Northern ports, under sealed orders. Lieut. Talbot, who had arrived at Washington on the 6th, from Fort Sumter, bearing a message from Major Anderson that his rigidly restricted supplies of fresh food from Charleston market had been cut off by the Confederate authorities, and that he must soon be starved into surrender, if not relieved, returned to Charleston on the 8th, and gave formal notice to Gov. Pickens that the fort would be provisioned at all hazards. Gen. Beauregard immediately telegraphed the fact to Montgomery; and, on the 10th, received orders from the Confederate Secretary of War to demand the prompt surrender of the fort, and, in case of refusal, to reduce it. The demand was accordingly made in due form at 2 P. M., on the 11th, and courteously declined. But, in consequence of additional instructions from Montgomery-based on a suggestion of Major Anderson to his summoners that he would very soon be starved out, if not relieved-Gen. Beauregard, at 11 P. M., again addressed Major Anderson, asking him to state at what time he would evacuate Fort Sumter, if unmolested; and was answered that he would do so at noon on the 15th, "should I not receive, prior to that time, controlling instructions from my Government, or additional supplies." This answer was judged unsatisfactory; and, at 3:20 A. M., of the 12th, Major Anderson

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was duly notified that fire would be opened on Fort Sumter in one hour.

Punctual to the appointed moment, the roar of a mortar from Sullivan's Island, quickly followed by the rushing shriek of a shell, gave notice to the world that the era of compromise and diplomacy was ended—that the Slaveholders' Confederacy had appealed from sterile negotiations to the last argument' of aristocracies as well as kings. Another gun from that island quickly repeated the warning, waking a response from battery after battery, until Sumter appeared the focus of a circle of volcanic fire. Soon, the thunder of fifty heavy breaching cannon, in one grand volley, followed by the crashing and crumbling of brick, stone, and mortar around and above them, apprised the little garrison that their stay in those quarters must necessarily be short. Unless speedily relieved by a large and powerful fleet, such as the Union did not then possess, the defense was, from the outset, utterly hopeless.

It is said that the Confederate leaders expected to reduce the fort within a very few hours; it is more certain that the country was disappointed by the inefficiency of its fire and the celerity of its reduction. But it was not then duly considered that Sumter was never intended to withstand a protracted cannonade from batteries solidly constructed on every side of it, but to resist and repel the ingress of fleets from the Ocean-a service for which it has since proved itself admirably adapted. Nor was it sufficiently considered that the defensive strength of a fortress inheres largely in its ability to compel its assailants to commence operations for its reduction at a respectful distance, and to

make their approaches slowly, under conditions that secure to its fire a great superiority over that of the besiegers. But here were the assailants, in numbers a hundred to one, firing at short range from batteries which had been constructed and mounted in perfect security, one of them covered with iron rails so adjusted as to glance the balls of the fortress harmlessly from its mailed front. Had Major Anderson been ordered, in December, to defend his post against all aggressive and threatening demonstrations, he could not have been shelled out of it by a thirty hours' bombardment. But why officers' quarters and barracks of wood should ever have been constructed in the center of such a fortor rather, why they should have been permitted to stand there after the hostile intentions of the Confederates had been clearly proclaimed-is not obvious. That shells and red-hot balls would be rained into this area— that the frail structures which nearly filled it would inevitably take fire, and not only imperil magazines, cartridges, and everything else combustible, but prevent the working of the guns, was palpable from the outset. To have committed to the surrounding waves every remaining particle of wood that was not essential to the defense, would seem the manifest work of the night which preceded the opening of the bombardment, after the formal demand that the fort be surrendered. To do this while yet unassailed and unimperiled, instead of rolling barrel after barrel of precious powder into the sea under the fire of a dozen batteries, with the whole center of the fortress a glowing furnace, and even the casemates so

hot that their tenants could only escape roasting by lying flat on the floor and drawing their breath through wet blankets, would seem the dictate of the simplest forecast.

So, when we read that "the guns, without tangents or scales, and even destitute of bearing-screws, were to be ranged by the eye, and fired 'by guess,"" we have an ample explanation of the inefficiency of their fire, but none of the causes of this strange and fatal lack of preparation for a contest that had so long been imminent. It might seem as if Sumter had been held only that it should be assailed with impunity and easily taken.

It was at 7 o'clock-nearly three hours after the first shot came crashing against her walls-that Sumter's garrison, having deliberately eaten their breakfast-whereof salt pork constituted the staple-fired their first gun. They had been divided into three squads or reliefs, each in succession to man the guns for four hours, and then be relieved by another. Capt. Abner Doubleday commanded the first on duty, and fired the first gun. Only the casemate guns were commonly fired-those on the parapet being too much exposed to the shot and shell pouring in from every quarter to render their use other than a reckless, bootless waste of life. The fire of the fort was so weak, when compared to that of its assailants, as to excite derision rather than apprehension on their part. It was directed at Fort Moultrie, the Cummings' Point battery, and Sullivan's Island, from which a masked battery of heavy columbiads, hitherto unsuspected by the garrison, had opened on their walls with fearful effect. The floating battery, faced