The Com­mis­sion­ers, act­ing as inter­me­di­aries for the Con­fed­er­ate gov­ern­ment, vis­it­ed Sec­re­tary of State Seward on March 15, 1861, to dis­cuss the esca­lat­ing ten­sions and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of peace­ful nego­ti­a­tion. Their goal was to avert war and find a res­o­lu­tion through diplo­mat­ic chan­nels. How­ev­er, despite Seward’s polit­i­cal acu­men, he informed them that he could not secure an audi­ence with Pres­i­dent Lin­coln due to oppo­si­tion from with­in the Cab­i­net. Instead, Seward attempt­ed to defuse the sit­u­a­tion by sug­gest­ing that if Pres­i­dent Jef­fer­son Davis had full knowl­edge of Wash­ing­ton’s polit­i­cal cli­mate, he might not have sent the com­mis­sion­ers. Seward also sug­gest­ed that the evac­u­a­tion of Fort Sumter was the most the admin­is­tra­tion could agree to, a state­ment that was sur­pris­ing to the com­mis­sion­ers. The men­tion of “evac­u­a­tion” was unex­pect­ed, and Camp­bell, one of the com­mis­sion­ers, saw it as cru­cial infor­ma­tion. He asked for per­mis­sion to share this with his fel­low com­mis­sion­ers, with Seward affirm­ing that Fort Sumter would be evac­u­at­ed with­in five days, but he also empha­sized that Seward lacked the author­i­ty to give such assur­ances.

Camp­bell, believ­ing the evac­u­a­tion infor­ma­tion to be impor­tant, con­veyed it to Mar­tin Craw­ford, anoth­er com­mis­sion­er. At first, Craw­ford was skep­ti­cal about Seward’s claims, but Camp­bell remained con­fi­dent that the evac­u­a­tion was immi­nent. He argued that press­ing Wash­ing­ton for an imme­di­ate response to their demands could back­fire, mak­ing it hard­er for the com­mis­sion­ers to secure any for­mal recog­ni­tion. There­fore, the com­mis­sion­ers opt­ed to exer­cise patience, hop­ing that wait­ing would lead to a more favor­able out­come and bet­ter rela­tions with Wash­ing­ton. They sent a telegram to their Sec­re­tary of State, Toombs, explain­ing their deci­sion and their belief that wait­ing would increase their chances of receiv­ing a pos­i­tive response. The grow­ing polit­i­cal ten­sion between the Union and the Con­fed­er­a­cy hung heav­i­ly in the air as the com­mis­sion­ers cau­tious­ly nav­i­gat­ed their options, aware that their next moves could sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect the course of events.

Mean­while, Seward, in a bid to address the com­mis­sion­ers’ demands, draft­ed a for­mal mem­o­ran­dum but chose not to deliv­er it direct­ly. He feared that pro­vid­ing such a doc­u­ment would be seen as an offi­cial recog­ni­tion of the Con­fed­er­a­cy, which he want­ed to avoid. Instead, Seward stored the mem­o­ran­dum in the State Depart­men­t’s archives, where it would remain for over three weeks with­out being act­ed upon. He believed that if ten­sions were allowed to sub­side nat­u­ral­ly, the com­mit­ment to seces­sion would fade over time, and the cri­sis might resolve itself with­out fur­ther esca­la­tion. Seward’s deci­sion to with­hold the mem­o­ran­dum reflect­ed his belief in a slow diplo­mat­ic approach, hop­ing that avoid­ing direct con­fronta­tion would even­tu­al­ly ease the sit­u­a­tion. How­ev­er, as the days passed, it became clear that this strat­e­gy may have been too pas­sive giv­en the mount­ing pres­sure from both sides, and the polit­i­cal land­scape con­tin­ued to shift toward a poten­tial mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion.

At Fort Sumter, Cap­tain Anderson’s sit­u­a­tion became increas­ing­ly dire as he sur­veyed the fort’s dwin­dling sup­plies. When he request­ed an inven­to­ry of the pro­vi­sions, he was alarmed to find that only twen­ty-six bar­rels of salt pork and six bar­rels of flour remained. The fort’s con­di­tion was dete­ri­o­rat­ing rapid­ly, and the men sta­tioned there were suf­fer­ing from ill­ness, fur­ther exac­er­bat­ing the cri­sis. Rumors of a poten­tial sur­ren­der began to cir­cu­late, adding to the uncer­tain­ty and ten­sion sur­round­ing the fort. Cap­tain Fos­ter, how­ev­er, remained res­olute and refused to yield to the rumors, con­tin­u­ing to rein­force the fort’s defens­es while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly prepar­ing for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of evac­u­a­tion. The sit­u­a­tion at Fort Sumter exem­pli­fied the dire con­di­tions faced by the Union forces, as they strug­gled to hold onto the fort with dwin­dling resources and ris­ing threats. The fort’s fate hung in the bal­ance as both sides await­ed the inevitable deci­sion on how to pro­ceed, with the com­mis­sion­ers in Wash­ing­ton and the troops at Fort Sumter caught in the cross­fire of polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary uncer­tain­ty.