dismissed them from his mind without further consideration.”  Such is Mr. Buchanan’s own confession.  He indulges in the excuse that to have then attempted to put these five companies in all or part of these nine forts “would have been a confession of weakness instead of an exhibition of imposing and overpowering strength.”  “None of the Cotton States had made the first movement towards secession.  Even South Carolina was then performing all her relative duties, though most reluctantly, to the Government,” etc.  “To have attempted such a military operation with so feeble a force, and the Presidential election impending, would have been an invitation to collision and secession.  Indeed, if the whole American army, consisting then of only sixteen thousand men, had been ‘within reach’ they would have been scarcely sufficient for this purpose.”

The error of this reasoning was well shown by General Scott in a newspaper controversy which subsequently ensued.[3] He pointed out that of the nine forts enumerated by him, six, namely, Forts Moultrie and Sumter in Charleston harbor, Forts Pickens and McRae in Pensacola harbor, and Forts Jackson and St. Philip guarding the Mississippi below New Orleans, were “twin forts” on opposite sides of a channel, whose strength was more than doubled by their very position and their ability to employ cross and flanking fire in mutual support and defense.  These works, together with the three others mentioned by General Scott, namely, Fort Morgan in Mobile harbor, Fort Pulaski below Savannah, and Fortress Monroe at Hampton Roads, were all, because of their situation at vital points, not merely works of local defense, but of the highest strategical value.  The reenforcements advised would surely have enabled the Government to hold them until further defensive measures could have been arranged; and the effect of such possession on the incipient insurrection may be well imagined when we remember the formidable armaments afterwards employed in the reduction of such of them as were permitted, without an effort on the part of President Buchanan to prevent it, to be occupied by the insurgents.

But the warning to the Administration that the Southern forts were in danger came not alone from General Scott.  Two of the works mentioned by him as of prime importance were Forts Moultrie and Sumter in Charleston harbor.  There was still a third fort there, Castle Pinckney, in a better condition of repair and preparation than either of the former, and much nearer the city.  Had it been properly occupied and manned, its guns alone would have been sufficient to control Charleston.  But there was only an ordnance sergeant in Castle Pinckney, only an ordnance sergeant in Fort Sumter, and a partial garrison in Fort Moultrie.  Both Sumter and Moultrie were greatly and Castle Pinckney slightly out of repair.  During the summer of 1860 Congress made an appropriation for these works; and the engineer captain who had been in charge for two years had indeed been ordered to begin and prosecute repairs in the two forts.