Any Minute Now, the grow­ing ten­sions at Fort Sumter marked a crit­i­cal peri­od in ear­ly April, as Major Robert Ander­son found him­self grap­pling with the weight of an uncer­tain fate. Ander­son, a com­posed mil­i­tary leader, was await­ing a pos­si­ble order from Wash­ing­ton to vacate the fort, but the pos­si­bil­i­ty of mil­i­tary action loomed over him. While he had men­tal­ly pre­pared to fight if nec­es­sary, he also began to see sur­ren­der as the best means of avoid­ing unnec­es­sary blood­shed. How­ev­er, Ander­son­’s con­cerns ran deeper—he lacked the author­i­ty to make such a piv­otal deci­sion on his own. His fear of being seen as a trai­tor or cow­ard, akin to Gen­er­al Twig­gs, who had hand­ed over all fed­er­al posi­tions in Texas with­out a fight, pre­vent­ed him from tak­ing imme­di­ate action. The pres­sure of mak­ing the right deci­sion in a volatile polit­i­cal cli­mate weighed heav­i­ly on him. With the fate of the fort—and his career—hanging in the bal­ance, Ander­son strug­gled with his role in what seemed to be an inevitable con­flict.

On April 1, Ander­son­’s con­cerns were fur­ther ampli­fied when he report­ed the dete­ri­o­rat­ing sit­u­a­tion to Col. Loren­zo Thomas, the new adju­tant gen­er­al. A thick mist had set­tled over the area, reduc­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty and con­tribut­ing to a sense of iso­la­tion for Ander­son and the sol­diers sta­tioned at the fort. Ander­son described the sit­u­a­tion as an “impris­on­ment,” a sen­ti­ment shared by many of his men, who were grow­ing anx­ious about their pre­car­i­ous posi­tion. Food sup­plies, already dwin­dling, were quick­ly run­ning out, and Ander­son warned that if Gov­er­nor Pick­ens did not allow civil­ian labor­ers to leave, the fort could be com­plete­ly cut off by April 8. The restric­tion of food sup­plies only height­ened the sense of des­per­a­tion, as the men at Fort Sumter were increas­ing­ly vul­ner­a­ble to star­va­tion. The real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion was becom­ing unbear­able, as the fort’s inhab­i­tants were cut off from the out­side world, with lit­tle hope for a res­o­lu­tion in sight. As Ander­son com­mu­ni­cat­ed these dire cir­cum­stances, the loom­ing pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing to aban­don the fort weighed heav­i­ly on his mind, though he still felt pow­er­less to make the deci­sion him­self.

On April 3, the sit­u­a­tion esca­lat­ed fur­ther when Cap­tain Joseph Marts, aboard the schooner Rho­da H. Shan­non, mis­tak­en­ly sailed into Charleston Har­bor instead of the Savan­nah Riv­er, due to poor vis­i­bil­i­ty caused by the ongo­ing mist. His acci­den­tal entry into the har­bor was met with imme­di­ate artillery fire from the Con­fed­er­ate-held forts sur­round­ing Charleston, fur­ther inten­si­fy­ing the already volatile sit­u­a­tion. In response to the attack, Cap­tain Marts attempt­ed to nav­i­gate his ship out of the har­bor, but the Con­fed­er­ate fire made his escape all the more dif­fi­cult. How­ev­er, Major Ander­son chose restraint, send­ing offi­cers to seek clar­i­fi­ca­tion from Con­fed­er­ate offi­cials rather than retal­i­at­ing with force. His deci­sion to avoid direct con­flict was dri­ven by a desire to pre­vent esca­lat­ing the sit­u­a­tion into open war­fare. Yet, the restraint Ander­son dis­played only seemed to frus­trate his men, with some ques­tion­ing his lead­er­ship and won­der­ing if a more deci­sive action should have been tak­en. Anderson’s refusal to engage in active defense, despite the provo­ca­tion, was seen by some as a sign of weak­ness, cast­ing doubt on his abil­i­ty to lead the gar­ri­son dur­ing such a crit­i­cal time.

As the day wore on, Charleston’s cit­i­zens became increas­ing­ly anx­ious, and rumors began to spread regard­ing the actions of the North and the future of Fort Sumter. In this cli­mate of uncer­tain­ty, Con­fed­er­ate leader Louis Wig­fall took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to address a crowd at the Mills House hotel, deliv­er­ing a fiery speech that declared war with the North was not just like­ly but immi­nent. His rhetoric seemed to res­onate with the cit­i­zens of Charleston, whose anx­i­ety was now chan­neled into antic­i­pa­tion of an inevitable con­flict. For indi­vid­u­als like Mary Ches­nut, the notion of a naval attack seemed increas­ing­ly prob­a­ble, and she found her­self grap­pling with the unset­tling thought that war was just around the cor­ner. Mary, reflect­ing on the mount­ing ten­sion, acknowl­edged the impend­ing real­i­ty of vio­lence and felt the weight of the cri­sis bear­ing down on her, know­ing that the peace they once enjoyed in Charleston was rapid­ly slip­ping away. The clos­ing moments of the chap­ter high­light­ed the sense of unease and ner­vous antic­i­pa­tion per­vad­ing the city, with every inter­ac­tion filled with the weight of what was yet to come.

The chap­ter effec­tive­ly jux­ta­pos­es the per­son­al strug­gles of Major Ander­son and his men with the broad­er polit­i­cal and social cli­mate in Charleston. Anderson’s inter­nal con­flict about his role in the poten­tial aban­don­ment of Fort Sumter pro­vides a human per­spec­tive on the dif­fi­cult deci­sions being made at the time. His restraint in the face of provo­ca­tion, while aimed at avoid­ing con­flict, also serves to high­light the chal­lenges of lead­er­ship dur­ing moments of cri­sis. At the same time, the events unfold­ing in Charleston—the rumors, the speech­es, and the grow­ing cer­tain­ty of war—paint a vivid pic­ture of the ten­sion that defined the peri­od lead­ing up to the Civ­il War. The city, with its vibrant social life, was also a place on the edge of chaos, where the per­son­al and the polit­i­cal were inex­orably linked. The con­trast between the qui­et des­per­a­tion at Fort Sumter and the grow­ing sense of war in Charleston cap­tures the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty of the moment, as both sides of the con­flict pre­pared for the inevitable. As Mary and oth­ers in the city await­ed the inevitable clash, the ten­sion in every con­ver­sa­tion seemed to reflect the larg­er nation­al cri­sis that was about to explode.