Fort SUMTER, S.C.,
April 12, 1861.
GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt by
Colonel Chesnut of your second communication of the 11th instant, and to state
in reply that, cordially uniting with you in the desire to avoid the useless
effusion of blood, I will, if provided with the proper and necessary means of
transportation, evacuate Fort Sumter by noon on the 15th instant, and that I
will not in the mean time open my fires upon your forces unless compelled to do
so by some hostile act against this fort or the flag of my Government by the
forces under your command, or by some portion of them, or by the perpetration
of some act showing a hostile intention on your part against this fort or the
flag it bears, should I not receive prior to that time controlling instructions
from my Government or additional supplies.
I am, general, very
respectfully, your obedient servant,
ROBERT ANDERSON,
Major, First
Artillery, Commanding.
Brig. Gen. BEAUREGARD,
Commanding.
SOURCE: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of
the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 425; 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. 14.
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