Captains of the Civil War | Page 6

charge of the pay and
quartermaster services. "Who are those men?" he asked, pointing to the
rangers, who wore red flannel shoulder straps. "They are McCulloch's,"
she answered; "General Twiggs surrendered everything, to the State
this morning." Years after, when she and her husband and Vinton had
suffered for one side and Lee had suffered for the other, she wrote her
recollection of that memorable day in these few, telling words: "I shall
never forget his look of astonishment, as, with his lips trembling and
his eyes full of tears, he exclaimed, 'Has it come so soon as this?' In a
short time I saw him crossing the plaza on his way to headquarters and
noticed particularly that he was in citizen's dress. He returned at night
and shut himself into his room, which was over mine; and I heard his
footsteps through the night, and sometimes the murmur of his voice, as

if he was praying. He remained at the hotel a week and in conversations
declared that the position he held was a neutral one."
Three other Union witnesses show how Lee agonized over the fateful
decision he was being forced to make. Captain R. M. Potter says: "I
have seldom seen a more distressed man. He said, 'When I get to
Virginia I think the world will have one soldier less. I shall resign and
go to planting corn.'" Colonel Albert G. Brackett says: "Lee was filled
with sorrow at the condition of affairs, and, in a letter to me, deploring
the war in which we were about to engage, made use of these words: 'I
fear the liberties of our country will be buried in the tomb of a great
nation.'" Colonel Charles Anderson, quoting Lee's final words in Texas,
carries us to the point of parting: "I still think my loyalty to Virginia
ought to take precedence over that which is due to the Federal
Government; and I shall so report myself in Washington. If Virginia
stands by the old Union, so will I. But if she secedes (though I do not
believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient
cause for revolution) then I will still follow my native State with my
sword, and, if need be, with my life. I know you think and feel very
differently. But I can't help it. These are my principles; and I must
follow them."
Lee reached Washington on the first of March. Lincoln, delivering his
Inaugural on the fourth, brought the country one step nearer war by
showing the neutrals how impossible it was to reconcile his, principles
as President of the whole United States with those of Jefferson Davis as
President of the seceding parts. "The power confided to me will be used
to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the
government." Three days later the provisional Confederate Congress at
Montgomery in Alabama passed an Army Act authorizing the
enlistment of one hundred thousand men for one year's service. Nine
days later again, having adopted a Constitution in the meantime, this
Congress passed a Navy Act, authorizing the purchase or construction
of ten little gunboats.
In April the main storm center went whirling back to Charleston, where
Sherman's old friend Beauregard commanded the forces that encircled

Sumter. Sumter, still unfinished, had been designed for a garrison of six
hundred and fifty combatant men. It now contained exactly sixty-five.
It was to have been provisioned for six months. The actual supplies
could not be made to last beyond two weeks. Both sides knew that
Anderson's gallant little garrison must be starved out by the fifteenth.
But the excited Carolinians would not wait, because they feared that the
arrival of reinforcements might balk them of their easy prey. On the
eleventh Beauregard, acting under orders from the Confederate
Government, sent in a summons to surrender. Anderson refused. At a
quarter to one the next morning the summons was repeated, as pilots
had meanwhile reported a Federal vessel approaching the harbor.
Anderson again refused and again admitted that he would be starved
out on the fifteenth. Thereupon Beauregard's aides declared immediate
surrender the only possible alternative to a bombardment and signed a
note at 3:20 A.M. giving Anderson formal warning that fire would be
opened in an hour.
Fort Sumter stood about half a mile inside the harbor mouth, fully
exposed to the converging fire of four relatively powerful batteries,
three about a mile away, the fourth nearly twice as far. At the northern
side of the harbor mouth stood Fort Moultrie; at the southern stood the
batteries on Cummings Point; and almost due west of Sumter stood
Fort Johnson. Near Moultrie was a four-gun floating battery with an
iron shield. A mile northwest of Moultrie, farther up the harbor, stood
the