Trust played a piv­otal role dur­ing the ear­ly spring of 1861, as the fate of Fort Sumter teetered between two war­ring sides. Sec­re­tary of State Seward had assured Con­fed­er­ate com­mis­sion­ers that Fort Sumter would be evac­u­at­ed with­in five days, yet as March 20 arrived—the day the fort was sup­posed to be vacated—it remained firm­ly under fed­er­al con­trol. In the midst of these ten­sions, Wash­ing­ton faced an unex­pect­ed cold snap, inten­si­fy­ing the urgency for a res­o­lu­tion. The Con­fed­er­ate com­mis­sion­ers, grow­ing increas­ing­ly anx­ious, faced the dilem­ma of trust­ing the promis­es made by Seward or prepar­ing for fur­ther esca­la­tion. Their dilem­ma was com­pound­ed by the fact that no con­crete action had yet been tak­en regard­ing the fort, leav­ing them in a state of height­ened uncer­tain­ty and await­ing any indi­ca­tion that the Union would live up to its assur­ances.

As time passed, Con­fed­er­ate Sec­re­tary of State Toombs expressed grow­ing con­cern, send­ing a telegram to the Wash­ing­ton com­mis­sion­ers in which he demand­ed clar­i­ty. Their unease was pal­pa­ble, and despite Seward’s assur­ances, they found them­selves ques­tion­ing whether the Union could be trust­ed to fol­low through on its com­mit­ments. The com­mis­sion­ers, how­ev­er, remained hope­ful, try­ing to main­tain their faith in Seward’s word and in the even­tu­al res­o­lu­tion of the cri­sis. They sought fur­ther updates from Gen­er­al Beau­re­gard in Charleston, who con­firmed that Fort Sumter had not been evac­u­at­ed, and Union troops were con­tin­u­ing to for­ti­fy its defens­es. The lack of progress fur­ther strained the com­mis­sion­ers’ patience, as they had hoped that the ini­tial assur­ances would lead to swift action. With no word on evac­u­a­tion, they grew increas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed and uncer­tain about their next steps.

Ten­sion esca­lat­ed when Jus­tice Camp­bell, act­ing as an inter­me­di­ary, met with Seward, who remained con­fi­dent in the sit­u­a­tion’s con­trol. Seward’s opti­mism about the evac­u­a­tion was clear, but he sug­gest­ed Camp­bell return the fol­low­ing day for a more thor­ough dis­cus­sion, fur­ther rais­ing doubts in the minds of the Con­fed­er­ate com­mis­sion­ers. While Seward’s assur­ances were meant to pro­vide com­fort, the increas­ing uncer­tain­ty about Fort Sumter’s sta­tus only deep­ened con­cerns. The com­mis­sion­ers dis­cov­ered, after fur­ther inquiry, that Seward’s state­ments did not ful­ly align with the real­i­ties at Fort Sumter, adding more lay­ers of doubt to the already pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion. The lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion about the fort’s sta­tus, cou­pled with Seward’s ambigu­ous reas­sur­ances, cre­at­ed an envi­ron­ment where trust was becom­ing increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to main­tain, as both sides await­ed fur­ther devel­op­ments.

On March 21, Cap­tain Gus­tavus Fox arrived in Charleston, tasked by Pres­i­dent Lin­coln to assess the con­di­tions at Fort Sumter. Seek­ing per­mis­sion from Gov­er­nor Pick­ens to vis­it the fort, Fox faced sev­er­al delays before final­ly meet­ing Major Ander­son with­in the fort’s walls. Dur­ing their meet­ing, the dire sup­ply sit­u­a­tion was made clear, with Ander­son stat­ing that the fort could only hold out until April 15 with­out the nec­es­sary resup­ply. This grim report con­tra­dict­ed the ear­li­er opti­mistic assess­ments, adding weight to the con­cerns about the fort’s sur­vival. The real­iza­tion that the fort was in a pre­car­i­ous posi­tion was a sober­ing moment, and the urgency of resup­ply­ing it was becom­ing evi­dent, as time was quick­ly run­ning out for any poten­tial solu­tion. Anderson’s report high­light­ed the logis­ti­cal chal­lenges involved and added anoth­er lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to an already tense and volatile sit­u­a­tion.

In the after­math of Fox’s vis­it, Cap­tain Hart­stene met with Gen­er­al Beau­re­gard, rais­ing alarms about the brief, unmon­i­tored time Fox had spent with Ander­son. This sparked fur­ther con­cerns regard­ing the infor­ma­tion being relayed between the two par­ties, adding to the already height­ened sus­pi­cions sur­round­ing the fort’s future. Ander­son, in a report to Wash­ing­ton, dis­put­ed Fox’s opti­mistic assess­ment, cit­ing the sig­nif­i­cant logis­ti­cal chal­lenges that would make rein­force­ments dif­fi­cult. He also point­ed out that Fox’s assess­ment may have been influ­enced by South­ern sym­pa­thies, which added fur­ther ten­sion regard­ing the loy­al­ty and deci­sions of Union offi­cers sta­tioned at Fort Sumter. The mis­trust and polit­i­cal com­plex­i­ty sur­round­ing the fort’s fate were evi­dent in the inter­ac­tions and reports that fol­lowed Fox’s vis­it, mak­ing it clear that the sit­u­a­tion was far more del­i­cate than ini­tial­ly antic­i­pat­ed.

The chap­ter clos­es with the pal­pa­ble ten­sion that sur­round­ed the fate of Fort Sumter. Fox’s suc­cess­ful per­sua­sion of Pres­i­dent Lin­coln to autho­rize the resup­ply mis­sion marked a sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ment, but it also sig­naled the grow­ing com­plex­i­ties in both the polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary land­scape. With the Union and Con­fed­er­ate forces at odds, the stakes were ris­ing, and the trust—or lack thereof—between the two sides was becom­ing more crit­i­cal than ever. As the sit­u­a­tion at Fort Sumter reached a boil­ing point, it was clear that the deci­sions made in the com­ing days would have last­ing con­se­quences on the tra­jec­to­ry of the Civ­il War. The fate of the fort hung in the bal­ance, and the out­come of the resup­ply mis­sion would play a piv­otal role in shap­ing the course of the con­flict.