[confidential.]
Executive Department,
Columbia, S. C, November 29, 1860.
Mr. W. H. Trescot.
Dear Sir: I take the liberty, from your general
character and without the pleasure of a personal acquaintance, to ask if you
have any objections, in the event of your connection with the Federal
Government ceasing, to remain in Washington and act as confidential agent for
this Department. It is important to have some one at Washington to give me the
earliest information of what transpires affecting the interest of this State,
and I know no one so acceptable as yourself. It is probable that the Convention
will want some one on the spot through whom the information of its final action
can be authoritatively communicated to the President at the earliest moment and
an answer received. If you remain I will inform the Convention that you are in
Washington, and suggest that you be selected to perform this delicate and
important duty. If there is any inquiry as to the course South Carolina will
pursue, you may safely say that she will not permit any increase of troops or
munitions of war in the forts or arsenal, and, considering it an evidence of
intention to coerce and an act of war, she will use force to prevent it, and a
collision must inevitably ensue. I have had great trouble, as it is, to prevent
an attack upon the forts, and will not be able (if willing) to prevent an
attack upon them if another soldier is sent there. Of course, I do not expect
you to act in the premises until your duty to the Federal Government ceases,
but I cannot but anticipate such a result soon. An early answer is requested.
Very respectfully and
truly yours,
wm. H. Gist.
SOURCE: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the
Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 32
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