[The following is in regards to private correspondence from the commander of the Fort Sumter garrison at the height of the incident which would soon spark the American Civil War, and a colleague, Lorenzo Thomas. The correspondence was leaked by South Carolinian officials who were handling the mail (breaching their code of honor).
In this note Anderson admitted he had been stunned by Washington’s April 4 message about the relief expedition. “I fear that its result cannot fail to be disastrous to all concerned.” He dreaded to think of the numbers of Fox’s own men who would die on Sumter’s rocks as they struggled to bring in supplies. He did not, he told Thomas, even have enough oil to keep a lantern lit for a single night; how could Fox’s boats see their way into the harbor. He said with justifiable bitterness, “I ought to have been informed that this expedition was to come.” Then he closed with a sentiment that many, such as Abner Doubleday, would use against him forever: “I frankly say that my heart is not in the war which I see is to be commenced.”
In retrospect the phrase seems so like the man. He had come to hate all wars, and given his background could hardly be expected to enthuse childishly about a civil war among Americans. He felt the sadness of a poet who understood war. In this he was close to that other native of Kentucky, the Abraham Lincoln of the war’s later months, who would speak of malice toward none.
His note never left Charleston. Instead, the Confederate authorities decided to release this private, sad letter to the public. Major Anderson, they knew, was a hero to many Americans, North and South. Beauregard and Pickens hoped that it would dilute enthusiasm for war in critical regions like Kentucky. All it actually accomplished was to embarrass poor Anderson. Once a war had begun, especially in the first excited flush of delightful rage, anyone speaking of war without enthusiasm seemed perhaps a bit soft on the enemy.
Source:
Detzer, David. “The Yellow Brick Road.” Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War. New York: Harcourt, 2002. 244-45. Print.
Original Source Listed:
GEN, pp. 293-94.
Further Reading:
"Their's but to do & die..."