In this chap­ter of “Lin­coln, The Demon of Unrest,” events unfold around the tense sit­u­a­tion at Fort Sumter in Charleston, rais­ing con­cerns for Pres­i­dent Abra­ham Lin­coln. Gen­er­al Scot­t’s ini­tial sug­ges­tion that Sumter be sur­ren­dered unset­tles Lin­coln, prompt­ing him to seek more detailed assess­ments regard­ing Major Ander­son­’s capac­i­ty to hold the fort giv­en its dwin­dling sup­plies. In his let­ter dat­ed March 9, Lin­coln pre­sent­ed three prob­ing ques­tions to Scott, focus­ing on the dura­tion Ander­son could main­tain his posi­tion with­out rein­force­ments and the fea­si­bil­i­ty of sup­ply­ing the fort with­in the remain­ing time.

Scot­t’s response revealed that Ander­son had pro­vi­sions for approx­i­mate­ly twen­ty-six days and salt meat for about forty-eight days. The gen­er­al con­veyed that effec­tive­ly rein­forc­ing Sumter would neces­si­tate sig­nif­i­cant mil­i­tary resources, includ­ing a fleet of war ves­sels and around 25,000 troops; how­ev­er, gath­er­ing such forces would take months, and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sup­port Sumter had near­ly passed.

Despite the urgency of the sit­u­a­tion, Lin­coln remained entan­gled in office pol­i­tics, as appli­cants for gov­ern­ment posi­tions surged at the White House, com­pli­cat­ing his deci­sion-mak­ing process. At Post­mas­ter Gen­er­al Mont­gomery Blair’s insis­tence, Lin­coln met Gus­tavus Vasa Fox, a for­mer U.S. Navy lieu­tenant and aspir­ing leader of a res­cue mis­sion for Ander­son. Though Fox had lit­tle mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence, his ambi­tion and close ties to Blair com­pelled Lin­coln to con­sid­er his revised res­cue plan seri­ous­ly.

As dis­cus­sions unfold­ed with­in Lincoln’s cab­i­net regard­ing this plan, opin­ions var­ied great­ly. Sec­re­tary of State Seward and oth­ers expressed con­cerns that an attempt to relieve Sumter could ignite civ­il war and alien­ate bor­der states. Mean­while, Blair argued for a deci­sive action to rein­force the fort, insist­ing that seces­sion­ists already per­ceived weak­ness in the North.

In the end, the cab­i­net’s deci­sions leaned towards cau­tion, with sev­er­al oppos­ing the rein­force­ment on var­i­ous grounds. Yet Lin­coln, dri­ven by instinct and the desire to uphold the Union, felt that sur­ren­der­ing Sumter would be cat­a­stroph­ic. Despite the dif­fer­ing opin­ions, he remained intrigued by Fox’s pro­pos­al, seek­ing more pre­cise intel­li­gence con­cern­ing the con­di­tions at Fort Sumter. Lin­coln direct­ed War Sec­re­tary Cameron to gath­er essen­tial infor­ma­tion to inform his deci­sion, result­ing in the selec­tion of Fox—who was per­haps the least objec­tive choice—to under­take this crit­i­cal task .