Brevet Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott to Brevet Colonel Harvey Brown, April 1, 1861

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,         

Washington, April 1, 1861.

Bvt.. Col. HARVEY BROWN,

U. S Army, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: You have been designated to take command of an expedition to re-enforce and hold Fort Pickens, in the harbor of Pensacola. You will proceed with the least possible delay to that place, and you will assume command of all the land forces of the United States within the limits of the State of Florida. You will proceed to New York, where steam transportation for four companies will be engaged, and, putting on board such supplies as you can ship, without delay proceed at once to your destination. The engineer company of Suppers and Miners; Brevet Major Hunt's Company M, Second Artillery; Captain Johns' Company C, Third Infantry, Captain Clitz's Company E, Third Infantry, will embark with you in the first steamer. Other troops and full supplies will be sent after you as soon as possible.

Captain Meigs will accompany you as engineer, and will remain with you until you are established in Fort Pickens, when he will return to resume his duties in this city. The other members of your staff will be Asst. Surg. John Campbell, medical staff; Capt. Rufus Ingalls, assistant quartermaster; Capt. Henry F. Clarke, assistant commissary of subsistence; Bvt. Capt. George L. Hartsuff, assistant adjutant-general; and First Lieut. George T. Balch, ordnance officer.

The object and destination of this expedition will be communicated to no one to whom it is not already known. The naval officers in the Gulf will be instructed to co-operate with you, and to afford every facility in their power for the accomplishment of the object of the expedition, which is the security of Fort Pickens against all attacks, foreign and domestic. Should a shot be fired at you, you will defend yourself and your expedition at whatever hazard, and, if needful for such defense, inflict upon the assailants all the damage in your power within the range of your guns.

Lieutenant-Colonel Keyes, military secretary, will be authorized to give all necessary orders, and to call upon the staff department for every requisite material and transportation, and other steamers will follow that on which you embark, to carry re-enforcements, supplies, and provisions for the garrison of Fort Pickens for six months. Captain Barry's battery will follow as soon as a vessel can be fitted for its transportation. Two or three foot companies will embark at the same time with the battery. All the companies will be filled up to the maximum standard, those to embark first from the recruits in the harbor of New York. The other companies will be filled, if practicable, with instructed soldiers.

You will make Fort Jefferson your main depot and base of operations. You will be careful not reduce too much the means of the fortresses in the Florida Reef, as they are deemed of greater importance than even Fort Pickens. The naval officers in the Gulf will be instructed to cooperate with you in every way, in order to insure the safety of Fort Pickens, Fort Jefferson, and Fort Taylor. You will freely communicate with them for this end, and will exhibit to them the authority of the President herewith.

The President directs that you be assigned to duty from this date according to your brevet rank in the Army.

With great confidence in your judgment, zeal, and intelligence, I remain, respectfully,

WINFIELD SCOTT.

APRIL 2, 1861.

Approved:

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

[Inclosure.]

SOURCES: Robert Means Thompson & Richard Wainwright, Editors, Publications of the Naval Historical Society, Volume 9: Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1861-1865, Volume 1, p. 15; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 1 (Serial No. 1), p. 365-6;

Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott's Memoranda for the Secretary of War, March 15, 1861

It seems from the opinions of the Army officers who have expressed themselves on the subject – all within Fort Sumter, together with Generals Scott and Totten – that it is perhaps now impossible to succor that fort substantially, if at all, without capturing, by means of a large expedition of ships of war and troops, all the opposing batteries of South Carolina. In the mean time – six or ten months – Major Anderson would almost certainly have been obliged to surrender under assault or the approach of starvation; for even if an expedition like that proposed by G. V. Fox should succeed once in throwing in the succor of a few men and a few weeks' provisions, the necessity of repeating the latter supply would return again and again, including the yellow-fever season. An abandonment of the fort in a few weeks, sooner or later, would appear, therefore, to be a sure necessity, and if so, the sooner the more graceful on the part of the Government.

It is doubtful, however, according to recent information from the South, whether the voluntary evacuation of Fort Sumter alone would have a decisive effect upon the States now wavering between adherence to the Union and secession. It is known, indeed, that it would be charged to necessity, and the holding of Fort Pickens would be adduced in support of that view. Our Southern friends, however, are clear that the evacuation of both the forts would instantly soothe and give confidence to the eight remaining slaveholding States, and render their cordial adherence to this Union perpetual.

The holding of Forts Jefferson and Taylor, on the ocean keys, depends on entirely different principles, and should never be abandoned; and, indeed, the giving up of Forts Sumter and Pickens may be best justified by the hope, that we should thereby recover the State to which they geographically belong by the liberality of the act, besides retaining the eight doubtful States.

SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 1 (Serial No. 1), p. 200-1;  Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 363