Headquarters, Fort Sumter, S. C.,
January 11, 1861.
To His Excellency F. W. Pickens,
Governor of South
Carolina.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt
of your demand
for the surrender of this fort to the authorities in South Carolina, and to
say in reply that the demand is one with which I cannot comply. Your Excellency
knows that I have recently sent a messenger to Washington, and that it will be
impossible for me to receive an answer to my despatch forwarded by him, at an
earlier date than next Monday. What the character of my instructions may be, I
cannot foresee.
Should your
Excellency deem fit, prior to a resort to arms, to refer this matter to
Washington, it would afford me the sincerest pleasure to depute one of my
officers to accompany any messenger you may deem proper to be the bearer of
your demand. Hoping to God that in this and all other matters in which the
honor, welfare and life of our fellow-countrymen are concerned, we shall so act
as to meet His approval, and deeply regretting that you have made a demand with
which I cannot comply,
I have the honor to
be, with the highest regard,
Your obedient servant,
robert Anderson,
Major U. S. Army, Commanding.
SOURCE: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the
Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 194
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