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acquainted with the proposition I presented to General Scott, under Mr. Buchanan's Administration, sent for me to tender the same to Mr. Lincoln, informing me that Lieutenant-General Scott had advised the President that the fort could not be relieved, and must be given up. Mr. Blair took me at once to the White House, and I explained the plan to the President.
Thence we adjourned to Lieutenant-General Scott's office, where a renewed discussion of the subject took place.
The General informed the President that my plan was practicable in February, but that the increased number of batteries erected at the mouth of the harbor since that time rendered it impossible in March.
Finding that there was great opposition to any attempt at relieving Fort Sumter, and that Mr. Blair alone sustained the President in his policy of refusing to yield, I judged that my arguments in favor of the practicability of sending in supplies would be strengthened by a visit to Charleston and the fort.
The President readily agreed to my visit, if the Secretary of War and General Scott raised no objection.
Both these gentlemen consenting, I left Washington on the 19th of March, and, passing through Richmond and Wilmington, reached Charleston on the 21st.
Thus we see that at the very moment when
Secretary Seward was renewing to the Confederate government, through
Judge Campbell, his positive assurance that “the evacuation
would take place,” this emissary was on his way to
Charleston to obtain information and devise measures by means of which this promise might be broken.
On his arrival in
Charleston,
Fox tells us that he sought an interview with
Captain Hartstein of the Confederate Navy, and through this officer obtained from
Governor Pickens permission to visit
Fort Sumter.
He fails, in his narrative, to state what we learn from
Governor Pickens himself,
1 that this permission was obtained “expressly upon the pledge of ‘pacific purposes.’
” Notwithstanding this pledge, he employed the opportunity afforded by his visit to mature the details of his plan for furnishing supplies and reenforcements to the garrison.
He did not, he says, communicate his plan or purposes to
Major Anderson, the
commanding officer of the garrison, having discernment enough, perhaps, to divine that the instincts of that brave and honest soldier would have revolted at and rebuked the duplicity and perfidy of the whole transaction.
The result of his visit was, however, reported at
Washington, his plan was approved by
President Lincoln, and he was sent to New York to make arrangements for putting it in execution.
In a very few days after [says Governor Pickens, in the message already quoted above], another confidential agent, Colonel Lamon, was sent by the President [Mr. Lincoln], who informed me that he had come to try and arrange for the removal of the garrison, and, when he returned from the fort, asked if a
