In the chap­ter titled “Cri­sis,” set dur­ing Jan­u­ary 1–8, Edmund Ruf­fin embarks on a sig­nif­i­cant jour­ney from a plan­ta­tion near Gainesville, Flori­da, to Tal­la­has­see to attend the state seces­sion con­ven­tion. On his way, he learns of Major Anderson’s maneu­vers at Fort Sumter and the poten­tial for con­flict, stir­ring his belief that the war’s advent could accel­er­ate deci­sions with­in the con­ven­tion. Flori­da remained cau­tious, with Ruf­fin insist­ing that imme­di­ate action was imper­a­tive, as they await­ed respons­es from oth­er states.

Reach­ing Tal­la­has­see on Jan­u­ary 3, Ruf­fin dis­cov­ers a delay in the con­ven­tion’s start due to the late arrival of del­e­gates, coin­cid­ing with his six­ty-sev­enth birth­day. Despite being elder­ly com­pared to the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion, Ruf­fin was notably vig­or­ous. The con­ven­tion even­tu­al­ly con­vened, allow­ing him the hon­or of tak­ing a seat amongst the del­e­gates amid sig­nif­i­cant fan­fare, which he claimed he did not desire, despite his fond­ness for pub­lic atten­tion.

In par­al­lel, Pres­i­dent Buchanan recon­vened his cab­i­net on Jan­u­ary 2 to address whether to for­ti­fy Major Ander­son at Fort Sumter. The read­ing of a con­tentious let­ter from South Car­oli­na esca­lat­ed ten­sions and led to a major­i­ty in the cab­i­net sup­port­ing rein­force­ments, despite Inte­ri­or Sec­re­tary Thomp­son’s dis­sent. Buchanan con­ced­ed to the pres­sure to dis­patch troops.

Mean­while, the War Depart­ment faced logis­ti­cal chal­lenges on how to rein­force Ander­son. Gen­er­al Scott recon­sid­ered pre­vi­ous­ly planned mis­sions for troop deploy­ment, ulti­mate­ly decid­ing to char­ter the com­mer­cial ves­sel, “Star of the West,” to under­take the mis­sion under strict con­fi­den­tial­i­ty. The ves­sel left New York on Jan­u­ary 5, with plans to trans­port sol­diers to Fort Sumter while main­tain­ing utmost secre­cy to avoid inter­cep­tion.

On the same day, Ander­son expressed sat­is­fac­tion in a let­ter writ­ten on New Year’s Eve, indi­cat­ing he felt secure in his posi­tion at Fort Sumter and that rein­force­ment was not urgent. This sen­ti­ment con­tra­dict­ed ear­li­er pres­sures, prompt­ing Buchanan to can­cel the mis­sion of “Star of the West,” but noti­fi­ca­tions were delayed, leav­ing Ander­son unaware of both the ear­li­er mis­sion and the sub­se­quent can­cel­la­tion orders.

Dur­ing this time, Ander­son received an unex­pect­ed vis­it from his wife, Eba, who trav­eled to Charleston for sup­port. Their reunion pro­vid­ed tem­po­rary relief to his iso­lat­ed sit­u­a­tion at the fort and lift­ed the spir­its of the gar­ri­son, which was busy for­ti­fy­ing defens­es in antic­i­pa­tion of con­flict.