Some good thing in the wind seemed to drift through the air in late March 1861, as Pres­i­dent Lin­coln took steps to assess the pro-Union sen­ti­ment in South Car­oli­na, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Charleston. He sent two emis­saries, Stephen A. Hurl­but and Ward Lam­on, to gauge the local mood fol­low­ing Cap­tain Fox’s recent eval­u­a­tion of Fort Sumter. Hurl­but, a for­mer South Car­oli­na res­i­dent with a less-than-clear past, used his vis­it under the guise of fam­i­ly mat­ters but quick­ly report­ed back to Lin­coln on the ris­ing war prepa­ra­tions he wit­nessed. These includ­ed armed ship­ments and mor­tars being stored at the rail depot, sig­nal­ing that the South was gear­ing up for pos­si­ble con­flict. Through these clan­des­tine inter­ac­tions, Lin­coln hoped to under­stand just how strong­ly the South­ern state still held on to its loy­al­ty to the Union, or if it had already ful­ly embraced the idea of sep­a­ra­tion.

Dur­ing his brief time in Charleston, Hurl­but met with sev­er­al influ­en­tial locals, includ­ing Judge James Peti­gru, South Carolina’s most promi­nent Union­ist. Peti­gru con­firmed that the Union­ist sen­ti­ment in the state had dras­ti­cal­ly declined, over­tak­en by a strong alle­giance to South Car­oli­na. This news was sober­ing for Lin­coln, as Hurlbut’s report clear­ly stat­ed that the idea of nation­al patri­o­tism had been replaced by a grow­ing attach­ment to the state’s inde­pen­dence. Hurl­but also warned Lin­coln that any fed­er­al action, such as send­ing troops or rein­force­ments to Fort Sumter, could pro­voke an imme­di­ate and vio­lent response, poten­tial­ly ignit­ing a war. This was a piv­otal moment, as it sig­naled to Lin­coln the esca­lat­ing ten­sions and the inevitabil­i­ty of a larg­er con­flict if steps weren’t tak­en care­ful­ly. The con­se­quences of mis­steps seemed to loom large as Lin­coln tried to nav­i­gate the intri­ca­cies of the nation­al and region­al alle­giances.

Mean­while, Ward Lam­on, Lincoln’s oth­er envoy, ven­tured into Charleston with an alter­na­tive approach. He met with Gov­er­nor Pick­ens to dis­cuss the sta­tus of Fort Sumter, though he did so with­out any for­mal author­i­ty to speak on behalf of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Lam­on hint­ed at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a fed­er­al with­draw­al from Fort Sumter, try­ing to pre­vent an out­right con­flict by sug­gest­ing that an evac­u­a­tion might be in the works. How­ev­er, Lamon’s con­ver­sa­tions with Major Ander­son at Fort Sumter revealed much deep­er con­cerns. Ander­son, a man of hon­or and duty, viewed any for­mal sur­ren­der of the fort as a dis­hon­or­able act, which cre­at­ed a rift between his sense of duty and the polit­i­cal real­i­ty he was fac­ing. Lamon’s mes­sage was seen by Ander­son as more than a suggestion—it was per­ceived as an unwant­ed pres­sure to capit­u­late with­out a clear direc­tive from Wash­ing­ton.

Ten­sions reached new heights when Gen­er­al Beau­re­gard, the Con­fed­er­ate gen­er­al, sent a note to Major Ander­son to clar­i­fy the Confederacy’s posi­tion. Beau­re­gard made it clear that no sur­ren­der was expect­ed, but he also hint­ed at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an explo­sion occur­ring if the fort were to be aban­doned. This ref­er­ence to a poten­tial explo­sion deeply angered Ander­son, who vehe­ment­ly reject­ed any sug­ges­tion of dis­hon­or or cow­ardice. He saw the impli­ca­tion of a cat­a­stroph­ic event as an unfair tac­tic to force his hand, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the emo­tion­al and mil­i­tary dynam­ics of the sit­u­a­tion. The pres­sures on Ander­son mount­ed, with the Union’s mil­i­tary strat­e­gy being ques­tioned by both the Con­fed­er­ate lead­er­ship and Wash­ing­ton, as Gen­er­al Win­field Scott in the cap­i­tal rep­ri­mand­ed Ander­son for the sup­posed inten­tions of sur­ren­der. This com­pli­cat­ed mix of mil­i­tary strat­e­gy and polit­i­cal expec­ta­tions set the stage for future con­fronta­tions, leav­ing both sides of the con­flict at a stand­still, unsure of what the next step should be.

Back in Wash­ing­ton, Sec­re­tary Seward met with William Rus­sell from the Lon­don Times, acknowl­edg­ing the sig­nif­i­cant role that the press would play in shap­ing pub­lic opin­ion as the gov­ern­ment con­front­ed the loom­ing seces­sion cri­sis. Their dis­cus­sions reflect­ed the uncer­tain­ty that sur­round­ed the fate of Fort Sumter and the Union’s approach to the sit­u­a­tion. Seward’s com­ments indi­cat­ed that the administration’s stance on the fort was still ambigu­ous, reveal­ing hes­i­ta­tion in the fed­er­al government’s strat­e­gy. Mean­while, Pres­i­dent Lin­coln, ful­ly aware of the mount­ing pres­sure from both his cab­i­net and the pub­lic, con­tin­ued his prepa­ra­tions for his first offi­cial state din­ner. Despite the grow­ing polit­i­cal storm, Lin­coln remained com­posed, main­tain­ing a lev­el of dis­tance from the emo­tion­al and mil­i­tary chaos sur­round­ing him. His abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate this com­plex polit­i­cal moment while car­ry­ing the heavy bur­den of lead­er­ship high­light­ed the con­trast between pub­lic appear­ances and the pri­vate strug­gles of deci­sion-mak­ing dur­ing a nation­al cri­sis. The inter­play of polit­i­cal maneu­ver­ing and mil­i­tary con­cerns under­scored the frag­ile state of the Union as it faced the real­i­ty of an impend­ing civ­il con­flict.