On Wednes­day, April 10, the pri­ma­ry con­cern for Major Ander­son at Fort Sumter was food sup­ply. He insti­tut­ed half rations for the gar­ri­son, pre­dict­ing they would last only two more days, until din­ner­time on April 12. The men made do with rice scav­enged from bro­ken win­dow glass left over from ear­li­er. Assis­tant Sur­geon Craw­ford doc­u­ment­ed this dire sit­u­a­tion in his jour­nal, not­ing Ander­son­’s strict man­age­ment of the lim­it­ed resources. The offi­cers became adept at sal­vaging crumbs from their meals, and dur­ing one meal, Major Ander­son rep­ri­mand­ed Dou­ble­day for leav­ing a piece of crack­er behind. The men were reduced to hav­ing only one crack­er each morn­ing and night, sup­ple­ment­ed by rice and cof­fee for sup­per. In a des­per­ate act of resource­ful­ness, Dou­ble­day man­aged to find and save a pota­to that had been stepped on.

That night, in antic­i­pa­tion of poten­tial con­flict, Ander­son ordered his men to relo­cate their bed­ding from the bar­racks into the fort’s case­mates, prepar­ing for the worst. Mean­while, Con­fed­er­ate Gen­er­al Beau­re­gard expressed con­cern about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a Union fleet arriv­ing under the cov­er of dark­ness, as over­cast skies would con­ceal the ships from view. The wind remained strong on the bay, but the tide was pre­dict­ed to rise around eight p.m., mak­ing Charleston’s har­bor more nav­i­ga­ble for the North­ern ships.

To counter any incom­ing fleet, a detail of sol­diers and enslaved indi­vid­u­als set about fill­ing three out­dat­ed ves­sels with flam­ma­ble mate­ri­als. These ves­sels were strate­gi­cal­ly placed in a chan­nel next to Fort Sumter, where they could obstruct and illu­mi­nate any ene­my ships attempt­ing to approach the fort. Should the Union fleet arrive, the hulks were to be ignit­ed, pro­vid­ing a clear line of sight as part of the defen­sive strat­e­gy.

This chap­ter under­scores the har­row­ing prepa­ra­tions and the state of des­per­a­tion faced by Ander­son and his men as ten­sions esca­lat­ed on the eve of antic­i­pat­ed con­fronta­tion. The scarci­ty of resources and the loom­ing threat of an attack char­ac­ter­ized the tense atmos­phere at Fort Sumter dur­ing this piv­otal moment.