In the middle of March a wealthy gentleman in New York, hearing of the garrison’s hunger pangs, sent its officers, through Dr. Crawford, several boxes of fine foods. Rumors were abounding that Washington was about to surrender the fort so Governor Pickens allowed the shipment to be delivered. Talbot wrote his mother about these mouthwatering “epicurean delicacies.”
”We cannot,” he said, “make up our minds whether to eat them as rapidly as possible, so as to dispose of them before leaving, or whether it is not better to hoard them up in view of a long, protracted siege. In the meantime the patés etc. are so tempting that the grave question is being resolved in a most natural way.”
As Doubleday later more laconically recalled, these delicacies “were fully appreciated.”
Source:
Detzer, David. “Hostages.” Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War. New York: Harcourt, 2002. 181. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
Talbot to his mother, march 15, 1861, TT.
REM, pp. 130-31.
Further Reading:
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