Sub­terfuge was at play as Major Ander­son devised a cun­ning strat­e­gy to occu­py Fort Sumter amidst the ris­ing ten­sions with South Carolina’s forces. Rec­og­niz­ing the immi­nent threat to Fort Sumter, Ander­son made the deci­sion to evac­u­ate the fam­i­lies of twen­ty women and twen­ty-five chil­dren from Fort Moul­trie to Fort John­son, pre­sent­ing this move as a pre­cau­tion against poten­tial vio­lence. Under the guise of ensur­ing their safe­ty, Ander­son char­tered three schooners, intend­ing to mis­lead observers about his true plans. While out­ward­ly focus­ing on evac­u­a­tion, his real goal was to qui­et­ly for­ti­fy Fort Sumter, a move that would sig­nif­i­cant­ly alter the course of events lead­ing to the Civ­il War.

Anderson’s strat­e­gy involved more sub­terfuge to main­tain the illu­sion that Fort Moul­trie was secure and that the gar­ri­son remained there. He instruct­ed Engi­neer Fos­ter to dis­able the fort’s artillery, giv­ing the impres­sion that prepa­ra­tions for defense were under­way. The goal was to con­vince any­one watch­ing that the fort was being rein­forced, while secret­ly prepar­ing to trans­fer the troops to Sumter. As rain delayed the oper­a­tion, Ander­son con­tin­ued to deceive oth­ers by keep­ing enough sup­plies at Moul­trie to main­tain the illu­sion of an ongo­ing defense while qui­et­ly pack­ing sup­plies for the covert relo­ca­tion. This tac­tic was a del­i­cate bal­ance of mis­in­for­ma­tion and strate­gic prepa­ra­tion, keep­ing his true inten­tions hid­den from those who might inter­fere.

On Decem­ber 26, Ander­son set the plan into motion with care­ful instruc­tions for the covert trans­fer of the gar­ri­son to Fort Sumter. Quar­ter­mas­ter Hall was sta­tioned in the bay, ready to sail once the fam­i­lies were safe­ly aboard, await­ing the sig­nal of can­non fire from Moul­trie as con­fir­ma­tion that the oper­a­tion had begun. As prepa­ra­tions were final­ized, two com­pa­nies of sol­diers, led by Cap­tain Dou­ble­day and oth­ers, were drawn into the clan­des­tine oper­a­tion, mak­ing their way toward the fort. Ten­sion ran high as the garrison’s row­boats nav­i­gat­ed the chan­nel under the cov­er of dark­ness, their move­ments grow­ing more anx­ious with each pass­ing moment. The uncer­tain­ty of the operation’s suc­cess loomed large, as any dis­cov­ery could lead to a dis­as­trous out­come.

As the boats made their way toward Sumter, the gar­rison’s nerves were test­ed fur­ther when one of the row­boats encoun­tered a patrol steam­er. The ten­sion was pal­pa­ble, as the sol­diers feared being dis­cov­ered, but relief soon came when the steam­er con­tin­ued on its course, allow­ing them to con­tin­ue their jour­ney with­out inter­fer­ence. Upon reach­ing Fort Sumter, the sol­diers were met with con­fu­sion, as work­ers inside the fort were ini­tial­ly hos­tile to the new­com­ers. Cap­tain Dou­ble­day had to assert con­trol swift­ly, ensur­ing that his men estab­lished a secure pres­ence with­in the fort. Despite the chal­lenges they faced, the oper­a­tion was ulti­mate­ly suc­cess­ful, and Ander­son imme­di­ate­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed with his supe­ri­ors and fam­i­ly, empha­siz­ing the strate­gic impor­tance of Fort Sumter while acknowl­edg­ing the dan­gers that still loomed.

The suc­cess of the oper­a­tion was soon reflect­ed in the actions tak­en by the cit­i­zens of Charleston. The absence of Fort Moultrie’s flag and the ris­ing plumes of smoke sig­naled the change that had occurred overnight, alert­ing the city to the shift in pow­er. This marked a clear frac­ture between Union and Con­fed­er­ate forces, with the sym­bol­ic act of rais­ing the Union flag at Sumter mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant moment in the grow­ing divide. Anderson’s care­ful plan­ning and the suc­cess­ful trans­fer of his com­mand set the stage for fur­ther unrest, as the con­flict that would lead to the Civ­il War became more immi­nent. The secre­cy and strat­e­gy employed dur­ing this oper­a­tion revealed just how high the stakes were, as the fort’s con­trol became a crit­i­cal point of con­tention in the strug­gle between the Union and the Con­fed­er­a­cy.