In ear­ly April, Major Ander­son, known for his com­po­sure, expressed grow­ing frus­tra­tion with Wash­ing­ton’s inac­tion regard­ing Fort Sumter. The cat­a­lyst for his dis­con­tent was learn­ing of a telegram from Con­fed­er­ate Com­mis­sion­er Craw­ford to Gen­er­al Beau­re­gard, warn­ing that Pres­i­dent Lin­coln might not order an evac­u­a­tion, instead leav­ing the deci­sion to Ander­son, effec­tive­ly let­ting him be “starved out.” Upon receiv­ing the news three days lat­er, Ander­son felt com­pelled to voice his con­cerns in a let­ter to Adju­tant Gen­er­al Thomas, ques­tion­ing whether the gov­ern­ment would tru­ly aban­don him with­out guid­ance.

Ander­son was anx­ious about the pub­lic per­cep­tion of him uni­lat­er­al­ly decid­ing to leave the fort; he found it stag­ger­ing that such a crit­i­cal deci­sion would rest on his shoul­ders amid ris­ing ten­sions and the prospect of war. He assert­ed in his com­mu­ni­ca­tion that after over thir­ty years of ser­vice, he would not allow the nar­ra­tive to depict him as hav­ing trea­so­nous­ly aban­doned his post with­out prop­er direc­tion. He empha­sized the need for imme­di­ate answers regard­ing the fate of the pub­lic prop­er­ty under his com­mand and where to take his forces.

While a let­ter from Wash­ing­ton was en route to pro­vide some answers, it would not be the guid­ance he desired. With his warn­ings about impend­ing food short­ages for his troops alarm­ing Lin­coln, the Pres­i­dent had come to believe the gar­ri­son could endure until April 15 with­out severe issues, only to now learn the sit­u­a­tion was more dire.

Lin­coln took charge, draft­ing a direc­tive for Ander­son, which was dis­patched through War Sec­re­tary Cameron with­out explic­it­ly men­tion­ing Lin­col­n’s involve­ment. The mes­sage con­veyed a sense of urgency, indi­cat­ing that Anderson’s pre­vi­ous cor­re­spon­dence had caused con­cern. It detailed plans for a mar­itime expe­di­tion meant to resup­ply Sumter and con­firmed Cap­tain Fox as the mis­sion’s leader.

Lin­coln urged Ander­son to hold out until the expe­di­tion’s arrival, reduc­ing risks to a min­i­mum, but indi­cat­ed that he trust­ed Ander­son would make pru­dent deci­sions as a sol­dier. Impor­tant­ly, Lin­coln grant­ed Ander­son the author­i­ty to sur­ren­der his com­mand if nec­es­sary for the safe­ty of his troops, rein­forc­ing the weight of his respon­si­bil­i­ty dur­ing this crit­i­cal junc­ture .