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
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