Charleston S. C. April
8th 1861
To The President
Under the foregoing orders I left Washington at 6 P.M.
Saturday April 6th, 1861, in company with Capt. Theodore Talbot, U. S. Army,
and arrived at Charleston, S. C. on Monday at the same hour. Finding that Fort
Sumter had neither been surrendered, evacuated nor attacked, I immediately
thro' Capt. Talbot, requested an interview with Governor Pickens, which was at
once accorded to me, and I then read to him the portion of said orders in
italics, and delivered to him the copy of the same which was furnished to me
for that purpose, in the presence of Capt Talbot. Govr. Pickens received the
Copy and said he would submit it to General Beauregard, he having, since the
ratification of the Constitution of the Confederate States by South Carolina,
been placed in charge of the Military operations in this vicinity – Genl.
Beauregard was accordingly sent for, and the Governor read the paper to him.
In reply to a remark made by Governor Pickens in reference
to an answer I informed him that I was not authorised to receive any
communication from him in reply—
Respectfully
submitted
R. S. Chew
SOURCES: Roy P. Basler, editor, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,
Volume 4, p. 324. A
copy of this letter is in The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress.
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