Outbreak 31be no invasion - no using of force against, or
among the people anywhere.' Turning
directly to the question of responsibility for
any aggressive moves, Lincoln added: 'In
your hands, my dissatisfied fellow
countrymen, and not in mine, is the
momentous issue of civil war. The
government will not assail you. You can have
no conflict, without yourselves being the
aggressors.' This statement left deliberately
murky what Lincoln meant by 'occupy and
possess' - most federal holdings in the
Confederate states had long since been lost.
Lincoln mainly sought to gain time in the
hope that Unionist sentiment would assert
itself across the South and reverse the
secessionist tide.
But time ran out. President Buchanan had
previously refused to abandon Fort Sumter
and sent a ship with reinforcements for the
small garrison commanded by Major Robert
Anderson. Southern batteries had fired on
that vessel on 9 January 1861, prompting
both sides to bluster and posture before
drawing up short of open hostilities. Since
that incident, Sumter had become a
tremendously important symbol. Northerners
saw it as the last significant installation in
the Confederacy still in national hands, and
Republicans adamantly refused to give it up.
Confederates just as adamantly insisted that
it stood on South Carolina soil and must be
transferred to their control.
Major Anderson informed Lincoln in
early March that the garrison's supplies
would soon be exhausted. Convinced that
the North would not tolerate loss of the
fort, the President decided to send an
unarmed ship with provisions. A full-scale
effort to supply and reinforce the fort,
Lincoln believed, would cast the North as
the aggressor and almost certainly send
the Upper South out of the Union. If
Confederates fired on the unarmed ship, the
North would appear as the injured party.
Lincoln informed the governor of South
Carolina that provisions were on the way
and that the United States would not fire
unless fired upon by southern batteries
around Charleston harbor.
Jefferson Davis and the Confederate
cabinet faced a serious dilemma. They also
hoped to avoid the label of aggressor. Yet
public opinion in the Confederacy
overwhelmingly favored seizing Fort Sumter.
Davis decided to request surrender of the fort
before the relief vessel arrived. Anderson
refused to capitulate, however, and shortly
after 4.30 am on 12 April southern guns
opened fire. Anderson and his men
surrendered 36 hours later. They left the fort
with colors flying and to the accompaniment
of a 50-gun salute, climbed aboard ships and
sailed for the North. The next day, Lincoln
issued a proclamation that declared a state of
insurrection and called out 75,000 militia
from the northern states.War fever
War fever swept across the North and South.
In four states of the Upper South, all of
which had previously decided against
secession, Lincoln's call for militia galvanized
sentiment. Virginia left the Union on
17 April, Arkansas on 6 May, North Carolina
on 20 May, and Tennessee on 8 June. The
Confederacy soon moved its capital from
Montgomery to Richmond, Virginia, and the
loss to the Union of these four states
virtually assured a long and difficult war.
Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina
ranked first, second and third in white
population among the Confederate states.
They also possessed more than half of the
new nation's manufacturing capacity,
produced half its crops, contained nearly
half its horses and mules and, most tellingly,
would provide nearly 40 percent of the
Confederacy's soldiers.
Eleven of the 15 slave states had reacted
decisively to the seismic events that had
rocked the nation between the election of
1860 and Lincoln's call for volunteers. In
withdrawing from the Union, white
southerners set the stage for a war that
would test the strength of the American
republic and destroy for ever the social
structure they had hoped to preserve.