Major Anderson Inaugurates War

After South Carolina resumed her independence on December 20th, the State took the proper responsibility for negotiating a property and debt settlement with the agent of the States, the federal government in Washington. Travelling to Washington to secure a peaceful transfer and appropriate compensation for their State’s share of the public debt, the commissioners met with obfuscation, deceit and political chicanery.

Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
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The War Between the States Sesquicentennial:
South Carolina Declares Independence

Major Anderson Inaugurates War:

“Immediately upon the secession of the State, the convention of South Carolina deputed three distinguished citizens of that State – Robert W. Barnwell, James H. Adams, and James L. Orr – to proceed to Washington, “to treat with the Government of the United States for the delivery of the forts, magazines, lighthouses, and other real estate, with their appurtenances, within the limits of South Carolina, and also for an apportionment of the public debt, and for a division of all other property held by the Government of the United States, as agent of the confederated States, of which South Carolina was recently a member; and generally to negotiate as to all other measures and arrangements proper to be made and adopted in the existing relation of the parties, and for the continuance of peace and amity between this Commonwealth and the Government at Washington.”

The commissioners, in the discharge of the duty entrusted to them arrived in Washington on December 26th. Before they could communicate with the President, however – indeed, on the morning after their arrival – they were startled, and the whole country electrified, by the news that, during the previous night, Major [Robert] Anderson had “secretly dismantled Fort Moultrie,” spiked his guns, burned his gun carriages, and removed his command to Fort Sumter, which occupied a more commanding position in the harbor. This movement changed the whole aspect of affairs.

It was considered by the government and people of South Carolina as a violation of the implied pledge of a maintenance of the status quo; the remaining forts and other public property were at once taken possession of by the State; the condition of public feeling became greatly exacerbated. An interview between the President and the commissioners was followed by a sharp correspondence, which was terminated on January 1, 1861, by the return to the commissioners of their final communication, with an endorsement stating that it was of such a character that the President declined to receive it. The negotiations were thus abruptly broken off.

[In their final letter to Buchanan, the commissioners had stated] “For the last sixty days, you have had in Charleston Harbor not force enough to hold the forts against an equal enemy. Two of them were empty; one of those two, the most important in the harbor. It could have been taken at any time. Scarcely had the commissioners left [Charleston for Washington], than Major Anderson waged war. No other words will describe this action. It was not a peaceful change from one fort to another; it was a hostile act in the highest sense – one only justified in the presence of a superior enemy and in imminent peril. This was war.

What the State did was in simple self-defense; for this act, with all its attending circumstances, was as much war as firing a volley…so that, when the first gun shall be fired, there will have been, on your part, one continuous, consistent series of actions commencing in a demonstration essentially warlike, supported by regular reinforcement, and terminating in defeat or victory. By your course you have probably rendered civil war inevitable. Be it so. If you choose to force this issue upon us, the State of South Carolina will accept it, and relying upon Him who is the God of justice as well as the God of hosts, will endeavor to perform the great duty which lies before her, hopefully, bravely, and thoroughly.

Our mission was one for negotiation and peace, and your note leaving us without hope of a withdrawal of troops from Fort Sumter, or of the restoration of the status quo existing at the time of our arrival, and intimating, as we think, your determination to reinforce the garrison in the harbor of Charleston, we respectfully inform you that we propose returning to Charleston on to-morrow afternoon. ”

(The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume I, Jefferson Davis, DaCapo Press, 1990, pp. 182-183; 517-518)
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Major Anderson Inaugurates War