HEADQUARTERS PROVISIONAL ARMY, C. S. A.,
Charleston, S. C., April 11, 1861.

SIR : The Government of the Confederate States has hitherto forborne from any hostile demonstration against Fort Sumter, in the hope that the Government of the United States, with a view to the amicable adjustment of all questions between the two Governments, and to avert the calamities of war, would voluntarily evacuate it.

There was reason at one time to believe that such would be the course pursued by the Government of the United States, and under that impression my Government has refrained from making any demand for the surrender of the fort. But the Confederate States can no longer delay assuming actual possession of a fortification commanding the entrance of one of their harbors, and necessary to its defense and security.

I am ordered by the Government of the Confederate States to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter. My aides, Colonel Chesnut and Captain Lee, are authorized to make such demand of you. All proper facilities will be afforded for the removal of yourself and command, together with company arms and property, and all private property, to any post in the United States which you may select. The flag which you have upheld so long and with so much fortitude, under the most trying circumstances, may be saluted by you on taking it down. Colonel Chesnut and Captain Lee will, for a reasonable time, await your answer.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
G. T. BEAUREGARD, Brigadier- General, Commanding.

Unionist Anderson, replies to CSA Beauregard:

Maj. EGBERT ANDERSON,
Commanding at Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, S. C.
FORT SUMTER, S. C., April 11, 1861.

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication demanding the evacuation of this fort, and to say, in reply thereto, that it is a demand with which I regret that my sense of honor, and of my obligations to my Government, prevent my compliance. Thanking you for the fair, manly, and courteous terms proposed, and for the high compliment paid me, I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

EGBERT ANDERSON, Major, First Artillery, Commanding.

Beauregard, in a seemingly intelligent and flexible maneuver, addresses an unofficial indication made verbally by Anderson to the CSA emissaries who have been seeking the Unionists’ evacuation.

Brig. Gen. BEAUREGARD,
Commanding Provisional Army.
HEADQUARTERS PROVISIONAL ARMY, C. S. A.,
Charleston, S. C., April 11, 1861.

MAJOR : In consequence of the verbal observation made by you to my aides, Messrs. Chesnut and Lee, in relation to the condition of your supplies, and that you would in a few days be starved out if our guns did not batter you to pieces, or words to that effect, and desiring no useless effusion of blood, I communicated both the verbal observations and your written answer to my communications to my Government.

If you will state the time at which you will evacuate Fort Sumter, and agree that in the mean time you will not use your guns against us unless ours shall be employed against Fort Sumter, we will abstain from opening fire upon you. Colonel Chesnut and Captain Lee are authorized by me to enter into such an agreement with you. You are, therefore, requested to communicate to them an open answer.
I remain, major, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. T. BEAUREGARD, Brigadier- General, Commanding.

Anderson, seeing that Beauregard has taken his hint, replies, with a date – contingent upon only a couple of face-saving provisos – on which he will capitulate to the CSA demands and evacuate.

Maj. EGBERT ANDERSON,
Commanding Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, S. C.
FORT SUMTER, S. C., April 12, 1861.
GENERAL : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt by Colonel Chesnut of your second communication of the ll th instant, and to state in reply that, cordially uniting with you in the desire to avoid the useless effusion of blood, I will, if provided with the proper and necessary means of transportation, evacuate Fort Sumter by noon on the 15th instant, and that I will not in the mean time open my fires upon your forces unless compelled to do so by some hostile act against this fort or the flag of my Government by the forces under your command, or by some portion of them, or by the perpetration of some act showing a hostile intention on your part against this fort or the flag it bears, should I not receive prior to that time controlling instructions from my Government or additional supplies.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant, EGBERT ANDERSON, Major, First Artillery, Commanding.

Snatching moral defeat from the jaws of a victory that was virtually his, CSA commanding replies:

Brig. Gen. BEAUREGARD, Commanding.
FORT SUMTER, S. C., April 12, 1861 3.20 a.m.
SIR: By authority of Brigadier-General Beauregard, commanding the Provisional Forces of the Confederate States, we have the honor to notify you that he will open the fire of his batteries on Fort Sumter in one hour from this time.

We have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servants,
JAMES CHESNUT, JR., Aide-de-Camp.

STEPHEN D. LEE, Captain, C. S. Army, Aide-de-Camp.

WAR OF THE REBELLION: A COMPILATION OF THE
OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES. SERIES I VOLUME I.

p 13, ff

One more thing. I honestly believe Lincoln pushed the issue at Sumter because he did not want the US Government to be the first to fire a shot. That would have been a green light for Maryland and Kentucky, and possibly other states, to join the Confederacy.

Like I said, he pushed the issue as he had no choice. He couldn’t allow all the US bases in the South to be lost without a fight.

Lincoln faced a crisis like no other president. Although now, Obola is certainly doing his best to foment another civil war.

” … my human sympathies are almost entirely with the people of the South who wished to be rid of both slavery and their neurotic, transcendentalism spewing northern fellow citizens, of whom I estimate 20 percent must have been crazy in some way.”

… that the class of southern dwelling people as a whole wished to be rid of slavery.

Rather I am referring to “those” who so wished.

Thus, ” … my human sympathies are almost entirely with the (i.e. those) people of the South …)

Had nothing been done for several more days at the most, the situation would have probably dissolved itself. But someone didn’t want to miss an opportunity to shoot off their canons.

If you read Chestnut’s account, among others detailing the back-and-forth between the Confederate government and Anderson, it’s plain that Anderson was only a day or so away from evacuating on his own. He said as much.

It is probably no coincidence that South Carolina fire eaters, the biggest talking and least performing of the side were responsible for igniting the violence in the East.

After all if they provoked a cascade of trouble, certainly Virginia would eventually ride to the rescue?

There is no one so contemptible, and dangerous to his supposed friends, as an emotional man who views the world as a stage where he can act out his dramatic urges. The North was filled with them, and the Secessionist South had its share as well.

Though a Yankee myself, after having read voluminous first hand accounts including material from letters and diaries, my human sympathies are almost entirely with the people of the South who wished to be rid of both slavery and their neurotic, transcendentalism spewing northern fellow citizens, of whom I estimate 20 percent must have been crazy in some way.

If the blowhard PT Beauregard were chained for an eternity in hell to the proto gender-subverting collectivist and male hysteric Wendell Phillips, it would be an example of ideal cosmic justice. Effen drama queens; they have always been with us.

McClellan might not have been much of a general, but he was right in his opinion of Massachusetts and South Carolina.

It was a Union fort before secession, it was occupied by union troops and resupply was stating that the union did not agree that the south could unilaterally secede. To legally secede, passage of a new Constitutional amendment would have been required and would still be required today.

Lincoln knew that by resupplying Fort Sumter, he was exacerbating tensions. Lincoln could have pulled the troops from the fort, but he chose a line in the sand.

I’m not saying that’s wrong, but it is what it is.

At that point Lincoln had three options: abandon the fort and essentially allow the south to secede or command the men to stay but not resupply, basically condemning the men to starvation or resupply hoping for restraint from the south, that they would not actually fire upon fellow Americans.

“Lincoln actively sought the war by that point”

That does not comport with either Lincoln’s words nor his actions, so specifics please, not unsupported accusations.

Geoffrey Britain Says:

They also fired the first shots , . . .

Lincoln had his ‘Charleston Harbor’ (akin to the Gulf of Tonkin) when he attempted to resupply Fort Sumter, knowing it would cause a reacton from the South. Lincoln actively sought the war by that point but he didn’t want to be the first to fire a shot in anger.

When the southern states realized that they were not going to be able to enforce the ‘principle’ that for every free state there must be a slave state, they attempted to secede. The US Constitution’s Article I, Section 10 prohibits unilateral secession; “No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance or Confederation“…

They also fired the first shots and attempted to through force of arms unilaterally abrogate their Constitutional agreement.

Amazing, they thought the same thing in 1860, that it was State’s Rights and War of Northern Aggression and Tyranny.

Two guesses how that turned out.