Showing posts with label Martin J Crawford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martin J Crawford. Show all posts

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Major Robert Anderson to Colonel Lorenzo Thomas, April 5, 1861

No. 94.]
fort Sumter, S. C., April 5, 1861.
(Received A. G. O., April 8.)
Colonel L. Thomas, Adjutant-General U. S. Army:

Colonel: I have the honor to report everything still and quiet, and to send herewith the report of Lieutenant Snyder, whom I sent yesterday with a short note and a verbal message to the Governor of South Carolina. No reply has been received to my note.

I cannot but think that Mr. Crawford has misunderstood what he has heard in Washington, as I cannot think that the Government would abandon, without instructions and without advice, a command which has tried to do all its duty to our country.

I cannot but think that if the Government decides to do nothing which can be construed into a recognition of the fact of the dissolution of the Union, that it will, at all events, say to me that I must do the best I can, and not compel me to do an act which will leave my motives and actions liable to misconception.

I am sure that I shall not be left without instructions, even though they may be confidential. After thirty odd years of service I do not wish it to be said that I have treasonably abandoned a post and turned over to unauthorized persons public property intrusted to my charge. I am entitled to this act of justice at the hands of my Government, and I feel confident that I shall not be disappointed. What to do with the public property, and where to take my command, are questions to which answers will, I hope, be at once returned. Unless we receive supplies, I shall be compelled to stay here without food or to abandon this post very early next week.

Confidently hoping that I shall receive ample instructions in time,

I am, Colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Robert Anderson,
Major First Artillery, Commanding.


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. 241; Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 391-2

1st Lieutenant George W. Snyder to Major Robert Anderson, April 4, 1861

FORT SUMTER S.C., April 4, 1861.
Maj. ROBERT ANDERSON,
First Artillery, U. S. Army Commanding Fort Sumter :

MAJOR: In compliance with your directions, I went, under a flag of truce, to the city of Charleston, in company with Captain Talbot, and had an interview with Governor Pickens and General Beauregard. In the interview with the governor, Captain Talbot only being present, I stated all the circumstances connected with the visits of Captain Seymour and myself to Cummings Point and the schooner Rhoda H. Shannon, which had been fired into by the batteries on Morris Island, on the 3d instant. I called his attention to the fact that he had not complied with his own proposition, to warn all vessels bearing the United States flag not to enter the Harbor. The governor replied that he and General Beauregard, with their staff officers, were standing on the piazza of the Moultrie House on Sullivan's Island, and saw the whole affair, and that my statement corroborated entirely his own personal observation, although it differed slightly from the report of Colonel De Saussure, the commanding officer on Morris Island. The governor said that the commander of the vessel whose duty it was to warn vessels not to enter the harbor had left his post, and had reported that the weather was too boisterous and the sea too rough for him to go out to the schooner Shannon; that this commander had already been sent for, and would be dismissed; that the commander of the cutter would be reprimanded for not going out and examining whether the Shannon were disabled; and that peremptory orders had been sent to Morris Island to stop this random firing.

The governor also said that if Major Anderson deemed it his duty to send out, under unfavorable circumstances, and examine the condition of the schooner Shannon, it was doubly theirs, imposed by humanity, and also by the commercial interest of their harbor.

General Beauregard was invited in, and I repeated what I had said to Governor Pickens to him. The general replied in the same terms as the governor, adding that the practice firing on Morris Island would take place at particular hours.

There was an objection made to Captain Talbot leaving Fort Sumter for Washington, but this was finally overruled and the captain allowed to depart. The governor said that orders had been received from Montgomery not to allow any man in the ranks, or any laborers, to leave Fort Sumter, and not to allow Major Anderson to obtain supplies in Charleston; that Mr. Crawford, a commissioner from the Confederate States, now in Washington, had sent a dispatch to him stating that he was authorized to say that no attempt would be made to re-enforce Fort Sumter with men or provisions, but that Mr. Lincoln would not order Major Anderson to withdraw from Fort Sumter, and would leave him to act for himself; also, advising the governor not to allow any supplies to be sent from the city to Fort Sumter.

I called the attention of both General Beauregard and Governor Pickens to the schooner lying near the left flank of Fort. Sumter. They said they knew nothing of her, but would send and ascertain, and direct her to move further from the fort. Governor Pickens remarked that as they were now acting under the authority of the Confederate States he had consulted with General Beauregard, who was now in command of the troops stationed here.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. W. SNYDER,
First Lieut. of Engineers, U. S.. Army.



Monday, April 8.
Sent by James E. Harvey by telegraph, last Saturday morning.

SOURCE: 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. 241-2

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Brigadier-General Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard to Leroy Pope Walker, April 1, 1861

Charleston, S. C., April 1, 1861.
The Hon. L. P. Walker, Montgomery, Ala.

The following telegram, just received from Commissioner Crawford: “I am authorized to say that this Government will not undertake to supply Sumter without notice to you. My opinion is that the President has not the courage to execute the order agreed upon in Cabinet for the evacuation of the fort, but that he intends to shift the responsibility upon Major Anderson by suffering him to be starved out. Would it not be well to aid in this by cutting off all supplies?”

“crawford.”

Batteries here ready to open Wednesday or Thursday. What instructions?

G. P. Beauregard.

SOURCES: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 391

Monday, August 29, 2016

Memorandum of John Thomas Pickett, April 10, 1861

DepaRtment of State,
Washington, April 10, 1861

Messrs. Forsyth, Crawford and Roman, having been apprised by a memorandum, which has been delivered to them, that the Secretary of State is not at liberty to hold official intercourse with them, will, it is presumed, expect no notice from him of the new communication which they have addressed to him, under the date of the 9th inst., beyond the simple acknowledgment of the receipt thereof, which he hereby very cheerfully gives.

A true copy of the original received by the Commissioners of the Confederate States, this 10th day of April, 1861.

Attest,
J. T. PICKETT, Secretary, &c., &c.

SOURCES: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 343; D. Appleton & Company, The American Annual Cyclopædia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1861, p. 713

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Diary of William Howard Russell: April 5, 1861

Dined with the Southern Commissioners and a small party at Gautier's, a French restaurateur in Pennsylvania Avenue. The gentlemen present were, I need not say, all of one way of thinking; but as these leaves will see the light before the civil war is at an end, it is advisable not to give their names, for it would expose persons resident in Washington, who may not be suspected by the Government, to those marks of attention which they have not yet ceased to pay to their political enemies. Although I confess that in my judgment too much stress has been laid in England on the severity with which the Federal authorities have acted towards their political enemies, who were seeking their destruction, it may be candidly admitted, that they have forfeited all claim to the lofty position they once occupied as a Government existing by moral force, and by the consent of the governed, to which Bastilles and lettrès de cachêt, arbitrary arrests, and doubtful, illegal, if not altogether unconstitutional, suspension of habeas corpus and of trial by jury were unknown.

As Col. Pickett and Mr. Banks are notorious Secessionists, and Mr. Phillips has since gone South, after the arrest of his wife on account of her anti-federal tendencies, it may be permitted-to mention that they were among the guests. I had pleasure in making the acquaintance of Governor Roman. Mr. Crawford, his brother commissioner, is a much younger man, of considerably greater energy and determination, but probably of less judgment. The third commissioner, Mr. Forsyth, is fanatical in his opposition to any suggestions of compromise or reconstruction; but, indeed, upon that point, there is little difference of opinion amongst any of the real adherents of the South. Mr. Lincoln they spoke of with contempt; Mr. Seward they evidently regarded as the ablest and most unscrupulous of their enemies; but the tone in which they alluded to the whole of the Northern people indicated the clear conviction that trade, commerce, the pursuit of gain, manufacture, and the base mechanical arts, had so degraded the whole race, they would never attempt to strike a blow in fair fight for what they prized so highly in theory and in words. Whether it be in consequence of some secret influence which slavery has upon the minds of men, or that the aggression of the North upon their institutions has been of a nature to excite the deepest animosity and most vindictive hate, certain it is there is a degree of something like ferocity in the Southern mind towards New England which exceeds belief. I am persuaded that these feelings of contempt are extended towards England. They believe that we, too, have had the canker of peace upon us. One evidence of this, according to Southern men, is the abolition of duelling. This practice, according to them, is highly wholesome and meritorious; and, indeed, it may be admitted that in the state of society which is reported to exist in the Southern States, it is a useful check on such men as it restrained in our own islands in the last century. In the course of conversation, one gentleman remarked that he considered it disgraceful for any man to take money for the dishonor of his wife or his daughter. “With us,” he said, “there is but one mode of dealing known. The man who dares tamper with the honor of a white woman, knows what he has to expect. We shoot him down like a dog, and no jury in the South will ever find any man guilty of murder for punishing such a scoundrel.” An argument which can scarcely be alluded to was used by them, to show that these offences in Slave States had not the excuse which might be adduced to diminish their gravity when they occurred in States where all the population were white. Indeed, in this, as in some other matters of a similar character, slavery is their summum bonum of morality, physical excellence, and social purity. I was inclined to question the correctness of the standard which they had set up, and to inquire whether the virtue which needed this murderous use of the pistol and the dagger to defend it, was not open to some doubt; but I found there was very little sympathy with my views among the company.

The gentlemen at table asserted that the white men in the Slave States are physically superior to the men of the Free States; and indulged in curious theories in morals and physics to which I was a stranger. Disbelief of anything a Northern man — that is, a Republican — can say, is a fixed principle in their minds. I could not help remarking, when the conversation turned on the duplicity of Mr. Seward, and the wickedness of the Federal Government in refusing to give the assurance Sumter would not be relieved by force of arms, that it must be of very little consequence what promises Mr. Seward made, as, according to them, not the least reliance was to be placed on his word. The notion that the Northern men are cowards is justified by instances in which congressmen have been insulted by Southern men without calling them out, and Mr. Sumner's case was quoted as the type of the affairs of the kind between the two sides. I happened to say that I always understood Mr. Sumner had been attacked suddenly and unexpectedly, and struck down before he could rise from his desk to defend himself; whereupon a warm refutation of that version of the story was given, and I was assured that Mr. Brooks, who was a very slight man, and much inferior in height to Mr. Sumner, struck him a slight blow at first, and only inflicted the heavier strokes when irritated by the Senator's cowardly demeanor In reference to some remark made about the cavaliers and their connection with the South, I reminded the gentleman that, after all, the descendants of the Puritans were not to be despised in battle: and that the best gentry in England were worsted at last by the train-bands of London, and the “rabbledom” of Cromwell's Independents.

Mr., or Colonel, Pickett, is a tall good-looking man, of pleasant manners, and well-educated. But this gentleman was a professed buccaneer, a friend of Walker, the gray-eyed man of destiny — his comrade in his most dangerous razzie. He was a newspaper writer, a soldier, a filibuster; and he now threw himself into the cause of the South with vehemence; it was not difficult to imagine he saw in that cause the realization of the dreams of empire in the south of the Gulf, and of conquest in the islands of the sea, which have such a fascinating influence over the imagination of a large portion of the American people. He referred to Walker's fate with much bitterness, and insinuated he was betrayed by the British officer who ought to have protected him.

The acts of Mr. Floyd and Mr. Howell Cobb, which must be esteemed of doubtful morality, are here justified by the States' Rights doctrine. If the States had a right to go out, hey were quite right in obtaining their quota of the national property which would not have been given to them by the Lincolnites. Therefore, their friends were not to be censured because they had sent arms and money to the South.

Altogether the evening, notwithstanding the occasional warmth of the controversy, was exceedingly instructive; one could understand from the vehemence and force of the speakers the full meaning of the phrase of “firing the Southern heart,” so often quoted as an illustration of the peculiar force of political passion to be brought to bear against the Republicans in the Secession contest. Mr. Forsyth, struck me as being the most astute, and perhaps most capable, of the gentlemen whose mission to Washington seems likely to be so abortive. His name is historical in America — his father filled high office, and his son has also exercised diplomatic function. Despotisms and Republics of the American model approach each other closely. In Turkey the Pasha unemployed sinks into insignificance, and the son of the Pasha deceased is literally nobody. Mr. Forsyth was not selected as Southern Commissioner on account of the political status acquired by his father; but the position gained by his own ability, as editor of “The Mobile Register,” induced the Confederate authorities to select him for the post. It is quite possible to have made a mistake in such matters, but I am almost certain that the colored waiters who attended us at table looked as sour and discontented as could be, and seemed to give their service with a sort of protest. I am told that the tradespeople of Washington are strongly inclined to favor the Southern side.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 63-6