It has already been stated how Colonel Gardiner, instead of obtaining his reënforcements, lost his command, and as a consequence Captain Foster's order for the forty muskets was duly put to slumber in a pigeon-hole at the arsenal. When Major Anderson arrived and assumed control he not only, as we have seen, repeated the demand for additional troops, but recognizing at a glance the immense interests at stake had himself renewed to Captain Foster the suggestion about arming some engineer workmen. Captain Foster promptly made the application to the department for permission, and soon after for arms. Permission came in due course of mail; but by this time Secretary Floyd would issue no order for the hundred muskets asked for.
Foster to De Russy, Dec. 4, 1860, W.R. Vol. I., p. 85.
Nevertheless, the working party of thirty was quartered in Castle Pinckney as quietly as possible, in order not to irritate the sensitive Charlestonians, and the officers and overseers in the two forts were instructed to sound and test the loyalty and trustworthiness of the mechanics and laborers. Those in Sumter had been brought from Baltimore, and in them Captain Foster placed his greatest hopes; but they disappointed him. On December 3 his overseer informed him that while they professed a willingness to resist a mob, they were disinclined to fight any organized volunteer force, and he was reluctantly compelled to abandon the scheme, at least as to Fort Sumter. But he still clung to the hope that the thirty men sent to Castle Pinckney, having been chosen with more care, might prove of some service in the hour of need. He gave orders to his officers to resist to the utmost any demands or attempts on the works, "Having done thus much," he wrote to the department, "which is all I can do in this respect, I feel that I have done my duty, and that if any overt act takes place, no blame can properly attach to me. I regret, however, that sufficient soldiers are not in this harbor to garrison these two works. The Government will soon have to decide the question whether to maintain them or to give them up to South Carolina. If it be decided to maintain them, troops must instantly be sent and in large numbers."
Though neither Major Anderson nor Captain Foster could obtain any official replies to distinct and vital questions involving the issue of peace or war, a trivial episode soon furnished them a very broad hint as to what the Secretary of War would ultimately do about the forts.
Ibid., Dec. 20, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 100.
On the same day on which, the South Carolina secession convention met at Columbia, the State capital, Captain Foster had occasion to go to the United States arsenal in the city of Charleston to procure some machinery used in mounting heavy guns. While there he remembered that two ordnance sergeants, respectively in charge of Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, had applied to him for the arms to which they were by regulations entitled. He therefore asked the military storekeeper in charge of the arsenal for two muskets and accouterments for those two sergeants. The storekeeper replied that he had no authority for the issue of two muskets for this purpose, but that the old order for forty muskets was on file, and the muskets and accouterments were ready packed for delivery to him. Foster received them, and after issuing two muskets to the ordnance sergeants at Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, placed the remainder in the magazines of those two forts.
Humphreys to Foster, Dec. 18, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 96.
Whether the vigilance of a spy or the subservient fear or zeal of the storekeeper gave the Charleston authorities information of this trifling removal of arms, cannot now be ascertained. The muskets had scarcely reached their destination when Captain Foster was astonished by receiving a letter from the military storekeeper saying that the shipment of the forty muskets had caused intense excitement; that General Schnierle, the Governor's principal military officer, had called upon him, with the declaration that unless the excitement could be allayed some violent demonstration would be sure to follow; that Colonel Huger had assured the Governor that no arms should be removed from the arsenal. He (Captain Humphreys) had pledged his word that the forty muskets and accouterments should be returned "by to-morrow night," and he therefore asked Captain Foster to make good his pledge.
Captain Foster wrote a temperate reply to the storekeeper, which, in substance, he embodied in the more vigorous and outspoken report he immediately made to the Ordnance Department at Washington: "I have no official knowledge (or positive personal evidence either) that Colonel Huger assured the Governor that no arms should be removed from the arsenal, nor that, if he did so, he spoke by authority of the Government; but on the other hand I do know that an order was given to issue to me forty muskets; that I actually needed them to protect Government property and the lives of my assistants, and the ordnance sergeants under them at Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, and that I have them in my possession. To give them up on a demand of this kind seems to me as an act not expected of me by the Government, and as almost suicidal under the circumstances. It would place the two forts under my charge at the mercy of a mob. Neither of the ordnance sergeants at Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney had muskets until I got these, and Lieutenants Snyder and Meade were likewise totally destitute of arms."
Foster to De Russy, Dec. 18, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., pp. 95, 96.
"I propose to refer the matter to Washington, and am to see several gentlemen, who are prominent in this matter, to-morrow. I am not disposed to surrender these arms under a threat of this kind, especially when I know that I am only doing my duty to the Government."
Foster to De Russy, Dec. 20, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 101.
Foster to De Russy, Dec. 19, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., pp. 97, 98.
According to his promise, Captain Foster went to the city on the 19th to hold an interview with General Schnierle and "several other prominent citizens of Charleston" on the subject of the alleged "intense excitement" which was again paraded as a menace to induce him to return the arms. If he was originally surprised at the reported excitement he was now still more astonished to find that it did not exist except in the insurrectionary zeal of those who were performing this farcical rôle purely for its theatrical effect. A majority of the "prominent citizens," who had been convoked as a part of the stage retinue to intimidate him by the threat of a mob, had not yet even heard of the affair. Detecting readily the sham and pretense of the performance, he seems to have at least accorded them the merit of an honest delusion. He quietly and politely explained to them the regularity of his orders and proceedings, and the good faith of himself and his brother officers. But he firmly declined to return the muskets until he should be directed to do so by the Government. Yet willing to go to the verge of his discretion to allay irritation, he agreed to appeal immediately by telegraph to the Ordnance Bureau for a decision.
He had not long to wait for a solution of the question. The Government was in all appearance deaf to the advice of its Secretary of State, General Cass, of its General-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Scott, of its Charleston Commander, Major Anderson, of its engineer, Captain Foster, so long as the problem was the safety of three great forts. But when the question became the possession of forty muskets, and the arming of two ordnance sergeants, "men with worsted epaulettes on their shoulders and stripes down their pantaloons" in the language of the Secretary of War, that eminent functionary could sacrifice his rest and slumber to the crisis. Captain Foster, who had returned from the city to Fort Moultrie, was awakened a little after midnight to receive the following peremptory instruction:
W.R. Vol. I., p. 100.
I have just received a telegraphic dispatch informing me that you have removed forty muskets from Charleston arsenal to Fort Moultrie. If you have removed any arms return them instantly.
JOHN B. FLOYD, Secretary of War.
Foster to De Russy, Dec. 20, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 101.
It was probably in no hopeful mood nor with enviable feelings that this brave officer returned by telegraph the strict routine answer of a loyal subordinate: "I received forty muskets from the arsenal on the 17th, I shall return them in obedience to your order."[1] The necessary consequence he embodied in his report to the department on the next day: "The order of the Secretary of War of last night I must consider as decisive upon the question of any efforts on my part to defend Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney. The defense now can only extend to keeping the gates closed and shutters fastened and must cease when these are forced."
[1] "Although this would place my officers and Forts Sumter and Pinckney entirely at the mercy of any mob, I considered myself bound as an officer to obey the order, which I did by the prompt return of the muskets by 10 o'clock that morning."—Foster, Report to The Committee on Conduct of the War.