Cross­ing the Bar, the Star of the West encoun­tered sur­pris­ing­ly clear weath­er on Jan­u­ary 8 as it made its way toward its des­ti­na­tion. How­ev­er, the offi­cer in charge, Lieu­tenant Woods, was unaware that the mis­sion had been can­celed, and he dis­trib­uted guns and ammu­ni­tion to the troops, prepar­ing them for action. As the ship approached Charleston around mid­night, Cap­tain John McGowan ordered all lights to be extin­guished, aim­ing to pre­vent the ship from being detect­ed. Despite the dark­ness, enhanced by the new moon, the sol­diers were allowed on deck, await­ing fur­ther instruc­tions. This moment under­scored the ten­sion and uncer­tain­ty sur­round­ing the oper­a­tion as the crew pro­ceed­ed with­out full knowl­edge of the mission’s can­cel­la­tion.

When they reached the Charleston Bar, McGowan observed that the har­bor light­hous­es were dark, and a key nav­i­ga­tion­al buoy was miss­ing. To nav­i­gate safe­ly, he resort­ed to sound­ing, an ancient method where a weight­ed line was low­ered into the water to mea­sure the depth, allow­ing them to move for­ward cau­tious­ly. As dawn approached, the crew spot­ted a light, which McGowan iden­ti­fied as com­ing from Fort Sumter, sig­nal­ing that they were on the right course. Woods lat­er reflect­ed on their jour­ney, describ­ing their approach as “grop­ing in the dark,” a vivid por­tray­al of the uncer­tain­ty they faced in unfa­mil­iar waters. With the ebb tide com­pli­cat­ing their nav­i­ga­tion, they wait­ed for day­light before attempt­ing to cross the bar, ful­ly aware of the dan­gers lurk­ing in the sur­round­ing waters.

As day­light broke, McGowan noticed a near­by steam­er, evi­dent­ly on watch, prompt­ing him to ensure that the Star of the West’s flag remained vis­i­ble. The steam­er respond­ed with blue and red lights, sig­nal­ing a demand for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. When McGowan chose not to respond, the steam­er fired rock­ets and crossed into the har­bor. As they neared the entrance, both Fort Sumter and Fort Moul­trie came into view, with the Amer­i­can flag clear­ly vis­i­ble at Fort Sumter. This sight fur­ther inten­si­fied the sense of fore­bod­ing, as the pres­ence of mil­i­tary defens­es indi­cat­ed that the sit­u­a­tion was becom­ing increas­ing­ly pre­car­i­ous. The flag’s pres­ence sig­naled that the Union’s hold over the fort was still intact, but ten­sions were run­ning high as the Star of the West moved clos­er to its des­ti­na­tion.

Look­outs on board soon spot­ted a large red pal­met­to flag fly­ing on Mor­ris Island, sig­nal­ing the pres­ence of a hid­den bat­tery of five can­nons, manned by cadets from a near­by small­pox hos­pi­tal. Cap­tain Abn­er Dou­ble­day, sta­tioned at Fort Sumter, was aware of the cannon’s pur­pose: not to attack Fort Sumter direct­ly but to guard the ship­ping chan­nel from pos­si­ble threats. Despite hear­ing rumors about the Star of the West’s mis­sion, Dou­ble­day was skep­ti­cal that the gov­ern­ment would send only a trans­port ship in such a del­i­cate sit­u­a­tion. He believed that the pres­ence of such a ves­sel in the midst of ris­ing ten­sions was high­ly improb­a­ble, mak­ing him hes­i­tant to act imme­di­ate­ly on the grow­ing rumors.

As he scanned the hori­zon, Dou­ble­day saw the steam­er approach­ing, dis­play­ing the Unit­ed States flag. Just as the Star of the West drew near­er, a can­non fired from the bat­tery on Mor­ris Island, land­ing in the water ahead of the ship, seem­ing­ly intend­ed to deter its advance. Nev­er­the­less, the Star of the West con­tin­ued its course, its large Unit­ed States gar­ri­son flag raised high. This prompt­ed Dou­ble­day to urgent­ly noti­fy Major Ander­son about the unfold­ing events. Doubleday’s quick response high­lights the esca­lat­ing ten­sion between the Union forces and the grow­ing South­ern resis­tance, mark­ing a piv­otal moment in the lead-up to the Civ­il War. The Star of the West’s mis­sion, now known to involve sig­nif­i­cant risk, set the stage for fur­ther con­fronta­tions as the Union and Con­fed­er­ate forces braced for what would soon become an open con­flict.

The chap­ter vivid­ly illus­trates the pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion faced by both the Union and Con­fed­er­ate forces, each maneu­ver­ing with­in a del­i­cate bal­ance of pow­er. The Star of the West’s jour­ney, fraught with uncer­tain­ty and chal­lenges, sym­bol­ized the frag­ile state of the nation, where both sides were prepar­ing for what seemed like an inevitable clash. The pres­ence of the can­nons on Mor­ris Island and the vis­i­ble flags at Fort Sumter revealed that mil­i­tary forces on both sides were already antic­i­pat­ing con­flict. As ten­sions mount­ed, every deci­sion, from the steamer’s response to the actions of the sol­diers aboard the Star of the West, con­tributed to the unrav­el­ing of the Union’s posi­tion in Charleston and the South’s resolve to assert its inde­pen­dence. This chap­ter exem­pli­fies the intri­cate mil­i­tary and polit­i­cal maneu­vers that set the stage for the Civ­il War.