In the chap­ter titled “Strange News,” dat­ed Decem­ber 27, Edmund Ruffin’s steam­er approach­es Fer­nan­d­i­na, Flori­da, as he seeks to sway the state’s leg­is­la­ture toward seces­sion. His plans involve tak­ing a train to Gainesville and then vis­it­ing the Mar­i­on Coun­ty plan­ta­tion of his friend, William Owens, before attend­ing Flori­da’s seces­sion con­ven­tion in Tal­la­has­see on Jan­u­ary 3.

While on the train, Ruf­fin receives telegrams, one of which reports that the gar­ri­son at Fort Moul­trie has moved to Fort Sumter. This news shocks him, prompt­ing him to ques­tion the verac­i­ty of the report and con­sid­er aban­don­ing his jour­ney to return to Charleston. How­ev­er, he ulti­mate­ly decides to con­tin­ue, unsure if the infor­ma­tion is cred­i­ble since mes­sages can often be unre­li­able. He sus­pects that the South­ern author­i­ties have been mis­led by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, specif­i­cal­ly by the Pres­i­dent and Sec­re­tary of War.

Upon arriv­ing at his friend Owens’ plan­ta­tion, locat­ed near Fort Drane, Ruf­fin feels out of touch with the lat­est devel­op­ments sur­round­ing Major Anderson’s move­ments, as he is unable to access cur­rent news due to the remote loca­tion. Days-old news­pa­pers do lit­tle to ease his anx­i­ety regard­ing the sit­u­a­tion in Charleston.

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, three com­mis­sion­ers from South Car­oli­na reach Wash­ing­ton, ful­ly expect­ing to nego­ti­ate with Pres­i­dent Buchanan as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of a new nation. They secure a well-appoint­ed lodg­ing while hop­ing for pro­duc­tive dis­cus­sions. On Decem­ber 27, a sen­a­tor bursts in with news of Ander­son­’s move, cast­ing doubt among the com­mis­sion­ers and prompt­ing intense spec­u­la­tion about mil­i­tary orders and inten­tions.

Amidst this uncer­tain­ty, Sec­re­tary of War John B. Floyd responds skep­ti­cal­ly, out­right deny­ing the news. How­ev­er, as reli­able telegrams con­firm Ander­son­’s actions, Floyd is com­pelled to act, send­ing his own telegram to Ander­son, express­ing dis­be­lief at the reports of the aban­don­ment of Fort Moul­trie. Ander­son quick­ly clar­i­fies the sit­u­a­tion, jus­ti­fy­ing his actions in mov­ing to Fort Sumter to pre­vent poten­tial casu­al­ties.

As news cir­cu­lates and the real­i­ty of Fort Sumter’s sta­tus emerges, Ander­son faces the daunt­ing task of ready­ing the fort for impend­ing con­flict, real­iz­ing the grav­i­ty of his strate­gic choic­es in this volatile moment in Amer­i­can his­to­ry.