The chap­ter titled “Con­fes­sion” revolves around Major Ander­son at Fort Sumter dur­ing a cru­cial peri­od of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and deci­sion-mak­ing lead­ing up to the out­break of con­flict. The mail deliv­ery delays—lasting three to four days—heightened Ander­son­’s sense of iso­la­tion, com­pli­cat­ing his attempts to com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly. Dis­trust in the tele­graph due to poten­tial inter­cepts left the mail, which both sides con­sid­ered con­fi­den­tial, as the pri­ma­ry means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

On April 7, Ander­son received an unex­pect­ed copy of Pres­i­dent Lincoln’s orders to resup­ply Fort Sumter, under a plan craft­ed by Cap­tain Gus­tavus Fox. This rev­e­la­tion shocked Ander­son, as it con­tra­dict­ed his pri­or under­stand­ing that the fort would be evac­u­at­ed. The fol­low­ing day, on April 8, Ander­son penned a pri­vate let­ter to his friend, Adju­tant Gen­er­al Thomas in Wash­ing­ton, sug­gest­ing that Thomas should destroy it upon read­ing. He cau­tioned that Fox’s expe­di­tion would be per­ceived as a betray­al by the South, under­min­ing pre­vi­ous assur­ances giv­en to the Con­fed­er­ate com­mis­sion­ers. Ander­son expressed that it was now too late for him to offer advice regard­ing Fox’s plan, which he inter­pret­ed as poten­tial­ly dis­as­trous.

Ander­son not­ed that he had been mis­led by Lincoln’s aide, Ward Lam­on, into believ­ing that an evac­u­a­tion would occur. Frus­trat­ed, he lament­ed his igno­rance of Fox’s expe­di­tion, stat­ing, “I ought to have been informed that this expe­di­tion was to come.” He revealed his inner sen­ti­ments, stat­ing, “We shall strive to do our duty,” while admit­ting, “my heart is not in the war which I see is to be thus com­menced.”

Ulti­mate­ly, this emo­tion­al­ly charged let­ter, which dis­played Ander­son­’s con­flict over the sit­u­a­tion, nev­er reached its intend­ed des­ti­na­tion. Instead, it end­ed up on a desk in the Charleston Hotel, high­light­ing a moment of per­son­al tur­moil amid impend­ing broad­er con­flict.