The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

Edmund Ruffin read the text of Lincoln’s inaugural address in Charleston. He concluded—as did many Confederates who were already disposed to see hostility in everything Lincoln did—that the new President’s speech signaled war between North and South.

In Montgomery, Mary Chesnut participated in an active social life among the Southern elite, befriending Jefferson Davis’s wife Varina. Despite being an enslaver herself, Mary was deeply affected one day when she came across an auction for enslaved people. “Poor women,” she wrote in her diary, “poor slaves” (304).

On his first day as President, Lincoln learned that William Seward had decided to accept the position of Secretary of State. Seward had considered refusing Lincoln’s offer of the position, but felt it was his duty to serve his country in its moment of crisis. Lincoln also received Major Anderson’s report about the huge numbers of troops that would be needed to support Fort Sumter.

At Fort Sumter, there was a new earnestness to the Confederate work of preparing their fortifications after Lincoln’s address, and now with Beauregard in charge. Luckily for the men at Fort Sumter, it appeared that a Confederate plan to build a floating battery of cannons was not working. The barge and its guns were too heavy to work properly when afloat.

Major Anderson was Beauregard’s artillery tactics instructor at West Point and—even though they now opposed each other—they considered one another friends. Despite his side’s huge advantage in manpower and weaponry, Beauregard still considered Fort Sumter very difficult to attack, since the fort itself was so strong. His focus became making sure that no reinforcements arrived to support the fort’s undermanned garrison.

There was relief in Washington that the inauguration had been completed without bloodshed. Lincoln’s government got to work, with William Seward so busy in the initial days that he became ill.

When no war broke out over the next several days, Edmund Ruffin became frustrated. He left for North Carolina to try to whip up support for that state to secede.

On March 8, while the Confederate soldiers surrounding Fort Sumter were firing blanks from their cannons for practice, they accidentally shot off a loaded cannon. The cannonball bounced off the water and hit Fort Sumter. The fort’s garrison sprang to action, but Major Anderson held fire, understanding that the shot was accidental. A Confederate emissary arrived by boat and “apologized handsomely” (316) for what had happened. The event highlighted how a simple mistake could inadvertently begin a civil war.

A new set of three Confederate commissioners arrived in Washington and attempted to meet with Seward to discuss the surrender of Fort Sumter. Seward politely declined to meet with them, realizing that to do so would be to recognize the existence of the Confederacy as a separate country. He also managed to avoid the meeting without issuing a formal rejection publicly, which he knew would be a major insult to the Confederacy and possibly lead to war.

The garrison at Fort Sumter worked hard to lift their heaviest and most powerful cannons—called columbiads—into position on the fort’s highest parapet. They got two of the columbiads into position, but a third fell while being lifted. The men also installed explosives, mines, and other anti-infantry devices all around the fort. In their free time the men played cards and fished. By March 9 they were out of candles and soap.

Despite the monumental difficulty of supporting or re-supplying Fort Sumter, Lincoln felt “on an instinctive level” (327) that surrendering the fort would be wrong, since it would send a cowardly message to the Union’s allies and fire up the Confederacy. General Scott maintained that Charleston Harbor was now too well fortified to attack, but a former Navy lieutenant named Gustavus Fox—“an ambitious man with a powerful need for recognition” (326)—presented Lincoln with a daring naval plan to support Fort Sumter. Lincoln’s cabinet was split on Fox’s plan, with most advising against it, but Lincoln was intrigued. He sent Fox to Charleston to learn more about whether his plan might work.

Mary Chesnut continued making the social rounds among the Southern elite of Montgomery, Alabama, sometimes accompanied by her husband James.

In Charleston Harbor, the Confederate forces drilled daily with their cannons. Loading, aiming, and firing a cannon was a complex process requiring many men. Any mistake and the cannon might explode, killing or injuring the men firing it. The Confederates also practiced with mortars, built to lob shells high into the air to land within Fort Sumter’s walls.

Major Anderson complained when the Confederates seized the fort’s hired Black servant—Thomas Lynch—when he was going about fort business in Charleston. In a written response, Confederate leadership told Anderson that Lynch was actually an enslaved person, not a free person, so had been returned to his enslaver. Anderson—a former enslaver—respected the rules and ended his complaints.

On March 15, the Confederate commissioners in Washington tried again to communicate with Seward, this time through a friendly intermediary: John Campbell of Alabama, an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Still trying to avoid saying yes or no to a meeting with the commissioners, Seward came up with a clever plan. He dropped strong unofficial hints to Campbell that the US would evacuate Fort Sumter within five days, even though that was not the case. Campbell passed that information along to the commissioners, who were then content to hold off on their meeting with Seward while they waited for the fort’s surrender.

By March 21, the Fort Sumter garrison began to hear rumors that Lincoln might surrender the fort. They continued shoring up the fort’s defenses, nonetheless.

Arriving in America, the English reporter William Russell concluded that the South was filled with “decision and energy” while “the Government appears to be helplessly drifting with the current of events” (343). Russell also critiqued the American obsession with chewing tobacco, which created little pools of tobacco juice all over the place.

Russell had dinner with William Seward, who made clear that he still believed the secession movement would fizzle out and the states would return to the Union. Russell found this view naïve. Russell criticized the idea that the Southern states would wage a war to protect the “curse” (344) of enslavement, something that the rest of the world had already abandoned.

Gustavus Fox—the former navy man with the daring plan for supporting Fort Sumpter—visited the fort on March 21. From his observations, he believed his plan—which relied on darkness to hide incoming Union ships—would work. He spoke with Major Anderson, who strongly disagreed, believing Fox’s plan was a mistake. Fox returned to Washington and “proved to be a compelling salesman” (348), causing Lincoln to consider approving the plan.

Hoping to gauge Southern sentiment, Lincoln dispatched two men to South Carolina to find out what they could. The men reported back that the people were unified in support of the state and in hostility to the Union.

At Fort Sumter, Anderson and Beauregard exchanged letters discussing a future possible surrender of the fort. The terms Beauregard outlined offended Anderson’s honor. He wrote that he would rather die than accept them. Anderson also became frustrated at a perceived lack of trust in his leadership from Washington, especially since his superiors had still given him no clear instructions on what to do other than to defend the fort if attacked.

Through Seward, the reporter William Russell got a brief meeting with Lincoln. Russell was impressed by Lincoln’s humor and shrewdness, but still felt that the US Government was being passive in its response to the secession issue.

By late March 1861, the garrison at Fort Sumter was out of firewood and resorted to destroying the fort’s wooden buildings to supply more.

Back in Charleston, where life continued as normal even amid the drama surrounding Fort Sumter, Mary Chesnut began a “flirtation” (359) with John Manning: a handsome enslaver of 600 people and one of the richest men in the South. Both were married, but the Southern elite accepted such flirtations as a welcome social distraction. Mary appreciated how flirting with Manning infuriated her husband James.

On March 27, Lincoln was distressed by a note from General Scott that recommended surrendering Fort Sumter—along with another federal property called Fort Pickens—since there was no way to resupply or reinforce Sumter before the garrison ran out of supplies.

After an elaborate state dinner, Lincoln assembled his cabinet on the issue. Though only about two weeks ago the cabinet members had largely voted against sending Fort Sumter support, now many reversed their positions. Seward continued to oppose sending reinforcements. Buoyed by his cabinet, Lincoln authorized two expeditions, one to each fort, but accidentally assigned the same powerful warship—the Powhatan—to both expeditions.