**The Sumter Expe­di­tion**

On the morn­ing of April 13, Cap­tain Fox and his team of vol­un­teers were prepar­ing their cap­tured schooner for a planned oper­a­tion off the Charleston Bar. The day was bright and most­ly clear, although the wind was strong, sug­gest­ing chal­leng­ing con­di­tions for their mis­sion. As mid­morn­ing approached, an omi­nous black smoke began to bil­low from the har­bor, sig­nal­ing increased activ­i­ty and con­flict in the sur­round­ing area.

By this time, Cap­tain Rowan of the *Pawnee* expressed grow­ing impa­tience, urg­ing imme­di­ate action against their ene­my forces. How­ev­er, Cap­tain Fox advised against such a reck­less move. He rec­og­nized that with­out the sup­port of the *Powhatan*, a direct assault would like­ly lead to dis­as­ter for their small­er con­tin­gent. The absence of the *Powhatan* was a crit­i­cal fac­tor in their strate­gic plan­ning, as engag­ing the ene­my with­out ade­quate back­up could endan­ger not only their mis­sion but also their lives.

Fox’s lead­er­ship was instru­men­tal in main­tain­ing a focus on sur­vival and prop­er tac­tics, despite the height­ened ten­sions indi­cat­ed by the smoke and ris­ing gun­fire in the har­bor. Rather than rush­ing into action, he encour­aged restraint and patience among his crew. The sit­u­a­tion demand­ed care­ful assess­ment rather than impul­sive deci­sions that could result from the pres­sure of the moment.

Over­all, this ear­ly part of the day was marked by antic­i­pa­tion and unease. The crew was on high alert, aware of the impor­tance of their forth­com­ing engage­ment and the sig­nif­i­cant risks involved. The deci­sions made in these moments could be piv­otal, set­ting the tone for the ensu­ing con­fronta­tion and deter­min­ing the fate of Cap­tain Fox and his team as they nav­i­gat­ed the com­pli­cat­ed land­scape of naval war­fare and strat­e­gy in a time of unrest.

Cap­tain Fox felt increas­ing­ly pow­er­less as he con­tem­plat­ed a risky attempt to break through to Fort Sumter. He con­clud­ed that try­ing to fight his way in with­out the for­mi­da­ble pres­ence of the *Powhatan* and its army of sol­diers would be a reck­less endeav­or, espe­cial­ly giv­en the tumul­tuous seas. While he held onto hope for the *Powhatan’s* arrival, he sought to ensure that Major Ander­son would at least receive some pro­vi­sions in the inter­im. This neces­si­ty prompt­ed him to rely on the quick think­ing of one of his offi­cers.

Cap­tain Stephen C. Rowan of the *Pawnee* pro­posed a solu­tion by com­man­deer­ing a wait­ing pri­vate schooner, which he pre­sent­ed to Cap­tain Fox. The ves­sel was intend­ed to trans­port essen­tial sup­plies and a small con­tin­gent of men to Sumter until the larg­er fleet, includ­ing the *Powhatan*, could arrive. Enthu­si­as­tic vol­un­teers quick­ly stepped for­ward to crew the schooner, com­prised of offi­cers, sol­diers, and sailors com­mit­ted to the mis­sion. They worked dili­gent­ly to load the ves­sel with guns and food, with plans to nav­i­gate past the bar late at night on Sat­ur­day, April 13.

The crew felt opti­mistic about their ven­ture. With a small ves­sel oper­at­ing under the cov­er of dark­ness, they believed they had a gen­uine chance of reach­ing Sumter’s wharf unde­tect­ed. Even in the event that they were spot­ted, the com­bi­na­tion of its lim­it­ed size and the cloak of night would like­ly make it dif­fi­cult for shore can­nons to accu­rate­ly tar­get the schooner. This hope­ful out­look inspired the crew as they pre­pared for their chal­leng­ing jour­ney ahead, ful­ly aware of the risks yet deter­mined to pro­vide sup­port to their fel­low sol­diers at Fort Sumter.

On a Fri­day morn­ing at sev­en a.m., the war­ship *Pawnee* arrived near Charleston, join­ing the *Har­ri­et Lane* and Cap­tain Fox’s ship, the *Baltic*. They were still await­ing the arrival of tug­boats and the war­ships *Powhatan* and *Poc­a­hon­tas*, which con­tained sol­diers and heavy artillery. Despite the absence of these ves­sels, Cap­tain Fox decid­ed to pro­ceed with the first phase of his mis­sion: deliv­er­ing pro­vi­sions to Fort Sumter peace­ful­ly.

As *Baltic* raised steam and sailed towards Charleston, accom­pa­nied by *Pawnee* and *Har­ri­et Lane*, they soon detect­ed smoke in the dis­tance and heard the omi­nous sounds of can­non fire. Cap­tain Fox not­ed in his writ­ings that as they approached the bar, it became appar­ent that war had bro­ken out, ren­der­ing the planned peace­ful deliv­ery moot. With the new urgency of con­flict, his orders man­dat­ed that he force his way into the har­bor.

Ini­tial­ly, Fox had intend­ed to enter under the cov­er of night, bring­ing all his ships close to Sumter to unload men and sup­plies dis­creet­ly. How­ev­er, with intense bom­bard­ments under­way, this plan was now unfea­si­ble. The mul­ti­tude of Con­fed­er­ate artillery sur­round­ing the har­bor posed a sig­nif­i­cant threat, and advanc­ing with­out a robust armed escort would be dan­ger­ous. Fox’s ship, the *Baltic*, was a com­man­deered pas­sen­ger ves­sel, lack­ing both armor and weapon­ry, which made the sit­u­a­tion even more pre­car­i­ous. He reflect­ed on the chal­lenges, stat­ing that both heavy seas and a short­age of sailors (only three hun­dred were avail­able) ren­dered any advance from the *Baltic* imprac­ti­cal.

Thus, the ships were left wait­ing, grap­pling with the stark real­i­ty that the peace­ful res­o­lu­tion they had sought was slip­ping away amidst the esca­lat­ing vio­lence around them. The chap­ter encap­su­lates the momen­tous deci­sion-mak­ing faced by Cap­tain Fox and his crew as they nav­i­gate a rapid­ly chang­ing and hos­tile envi­ron­ment.