On Thurs­day, April 11, William Rus­sell of the Lon­don Times dined at the mod­est res­i­dence of Gen­er­al Win­field Scott, the com­man­der of mil­i­tary forces in Wash­ing­ton. Upon arrival, he was greet­ed by sol­diers on horse­back patrolling the street. Inside, he joined a gath­er­ing that includ­ed notable fig­ures like William Seward and Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bates, as well as Major George W. Cul­lum, a stern Army engi­neer known for his past con­struc­tion of for­ti­fi­ca­tions, includ­ing Fort Sumter.

The din­ner was remark­able, described as “a most excel­lent din­ner” with fine wines from var­i­ous regions. Just as the meal pro­gressed, an order­ly deliv­ered a dis­patch from Pres­i­dent Lin­coln. Scott read it but had to apol­o­gize for his rude­ness, hand­ing it over to Seward, whose reac­tion indi­cat­ed its sig­nif­i­cance. An air of agi­ta­tion sur­round­ed Seward as he read it, then passed it to Bates, who also demon­strat­ed sur­prise.

To allow them to dis­cuss the con­tents pri­vate­ly, Rus­sell stepped out­side into the gar­den with Major Cul­lum, where he not­ed the unusu­al secu­ri­ty mea­sures around Gen­er­al Scott. After some time, they returned inside to learn the dis­patch’s crit­i­cal mes­sage: the South Car­oli­na bat­ter­ies were ordered to fire on Fort Sumter if Major Ander­son did not sur­ren­der.

Din­ner con­clud­ed, and Seward escort­ed Rus­sell back to the Willard Hotel, dri­ving through the unex­pect­ed­ly emp­ty streets of Penn­syl­va­nia Avenue. The threat of a poten­tial attack from Vir­ginia loomed large, as rumors hint­ed about a force gath­er­ing for a dar­ing mis­sion that includ­ed the poten­tial kid­nap­ping of Lin­coln and his cab­i­net. Seward admit­ted that Wash­ing­ton was “almost defense­less,” but claimed both the North and South were unpre­pared for aggres­sive mil­i­tary action.

Rus­sell planned to leave for Charleston the fol­low­ing day, head­ing first to Bal­ti­more. Set­ting out amidst a heavy rain­storm, he arrived two hours lat­er to find the streets flood­ed. At Eutaw House, his hotel, an employ­ee con­firmed that the bom­bard­ment of Fort Sumter had begun. How­ev­er, Rus­sell remained skep­ti­cal of such claims, as he had encoun­tered many false reports in recent days. When he vis­it­ed the hotel bar, it buzzed with spec­u­la­tion about Sumter, plac­ing Rus­sell in an unfa­mil­iar position—he was just as unin­formed as the patrons ask­ing him for his opin­ions.

On April 3, William Rus­sell of the Lon­don Times met the South­ern com­mis­sion­ers Mar­tin Craw­ford and John Forsyth, which led him to ques­tion the via­bil­i­ty of restor­ing the Union. He not­ed in his diary their sense of enti­tle­ment, believ­ing they were rep­re­sen­ta­tives of a for­eign nation nego­ti­at­ing with “Yan­kee­dom,” express­ing indig­na­tion over the government’s refusal to engage them in dis­cus­sions about sep­a­ra­tion-relat­ed mat­ters. Two days lat­er, he met with all three com­mis­sion­ers, includ­ing André Roman of Louisiana, as well as oth­er seces­sion­ist fig­ures like Colonel George E. Pick­ett. They dined at Gautier’s, a French restau­rant known for extrav­a­gant dis­plays, includ­ing a large cake at Christ­mas.

Dur­ing din­ner, South­ern fig­ures spoke harsh­ly against Lin­coln and North­ern politi­cians, demon­strat­ing intense hatred towards New Eng­land. Rus­sell observed that their feroc­i­ty seemed dis­pro­por­tion­ate, per­haps influ­enced by the South’s soci­etal struc­tures like slav­ery. The con­ver­sa­tion turned to their notions of hon­or, reveal­ing a fierce defense of duel­ing and a belief that North­ern men were inher­ent­ly cow­ard­ly. They point­ed to the 1856 can­ing of Charles Sum­n­er as evi­dence, dis­miss­ing the com­plex­i­ties of the inci­dent and blam­ing Sum­n­er for not duel­ing.

When dis­cussing slav­ery, Rus­sell found their asser­tions trou­bling, as they posit­ed that white men in slave states were phys­i­cal­ly supe­ri­or to those in free states, weav­ing strange moral and phys­i­cal the­o­ries that per­plexed him. He con­clud­ed that North­ern­ers under­es­ti­mat­ed their South­ern brethren, not­ing that while South­ern­ers fre­quent­ly trav­eled North, North­ern­ers avoid­ed the South out of safe­ty con­cerns.

William Seward’s igno­rance fur­ther trou­bled Rus­sell; Seward con­sid­ered South­ern­ers out­dat­ed yet had nev­er vis­it­ed the region him­self. Seward believed that seces­sion would soon be resolved peace­ful­ly, claim­ing that when the South­ern states real­ized the North’s inten­tions were benign, they would return to the Union. This vision stark­ly con­trast­ed with Rus­sel­l’s obser­va­tions from the South­ern con­ver­sa­tions, prompt­ing him to plan a trip to Charleston to assess the grow­ing ten­sions first­hand. Despite feel­ing the urgency, he delayed his depar­ture from Wash­ing­ton for six days.