The Major Gets an Idea cen­ters on Capt. John G. Fos­ter, a sea­soned vet­er­an of the U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers, tasked with strength­en­ing the defens­es of Charleston Har­bor dur­ing the tense peri­od fol­low­ing South Car­oli­na’s seces­sion in Decem­ber 1860. At thir­ty-sev­en years old, Fos­ter was already known for his expe­ri­ence and dis­tinc­tive limp, a rem­nant of past com­bat. He had tak­en the ini­tia­tive to rein­force Fort Sumter and Fort Moul­trie by employ­ing civil­ian work­ers to dig a wet ditch around Fort Moul­trie and con­struct addi­tion­al defens­es to guard against poten­tial infantry attacks. Addi­tion­al­ly, Fos­ter ini­ti­at­ed plans to give Major Ander­son the abil­i­ty to destroy the fort if seces­sion­ist forces attempt­ed to seize it. His proac­tive approach reflect­ed the urgency of the sit­u­a­tion, under­stand­ing that Charleston’s strate­gic loca­tion made it a crit­i­cal tar­get for both Union and Con­fed­er­ate forces.

Rec­og­niz­ing the impor­tance of arm­ing his work­force, Fos­ter request­ed forty mus­kets from the fed­er­al arse­nal, a deci­sion that, although rea­son­able in his eyes, risked esca­lat­ing ten­sions with the South. Col. Ben­jamin Huger, the arsenal’s com­man­der, had already promised the South Car­oli­na gov­er­nor that no arms would be sup­plied to the Union forces, mak­ing Foster’s request con­tro­ver­sial. The ten­sion height­ened when War Sec­re­tary Floyd sent a telegram instruct­ing Fos­ter to return any arms tak­en from the arse­nal, rein­forc­ing the pre­car­i­ous­ness of the sit­u­a­tion. Fos­ter com­plied, ful­ly aware of the polit­i­cal con­se­quences that could fol­low if he defied the order. The act of request­ing weapons had already put him at odds with the Con­fed­er­ate-aligned offi­cials, show­cas­ing the chal­lenges faced by Union com­man­ders in the South, where each deci­sion had the poten­tial to tip the scale toward fur­ther con­flict.

Mean­while, a let­ter from Sec­re­tary of War Floyd to Major Ander­son cast fur­ther doubt on the fed­er­al gov­ern­men­t’s com­mit­ment to defend­ing the forts. Floyd, who had already been accused of cor­rup­tion and betray­al, altered his ear­li­er orders, now sug­gest­ing that defend­ing the forts might be a “use­less sac­ri­fice.” This dras­tic shift in pol­i­cy only deep­ened Anderson’s sus­pi­cions, as it con­tra­dict­ed ear­li­er instruc­tions to hold the forts at all costs. Floyd’s words reflect­ed a broad­er sense of inde­ci­sion with­in the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, hint­ing at the grow­ing divide between Union loy­al­ty and South­ern seces­sion­ist sen­ti­ment. Ander­son, deeply trou­bled by the appar­ent lack of com­mit­ment from Wash­ing­ton, began to feel iso­lat­ed and increas­ing­ly doubt­ful of the government’s resolve to main­tain its hold over the forts in Charleston.

Amid these shift­ing tides, Ander­son rec­og­nized that Fort Sumter was the only defen­si­ble posi­tion left in Charleston. The dete­ri­o­rat­ing sit­u­a­tion at Fort Moul­trie and the grow­ing threat of seces­sion­ist forces led Ander­son to con­sid­er relo­cat­ing his troops to Sumter. How­ev­er, he was mind­ful of the poten­tial polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary fall­out from such a move, as it would sure­ly pro­voke South Car­oli­na offi­cials. Anderson’s deci­sion, though nec­es­sary for the defense of his men, had to be kept pri­vate, par­tic­u­lar­ly from his offi­cers, to avoid rais­ing ten­sions or trig­ger­ing pre­ma­ture con­flict. The real­iza­tion that the government’s com­mit­ment to defend­ing Charleston was fal­ter­ing made the deci­sion all the more urgent. As Ander­son pre­pared for these sig­nif­i­cant changes, he remained deeply aware of the polit­i­cal land­scape, know­ing that his actions would play a piv­otal role in the unfold­ing cri­sis.

The com­plex­i­ties of Anderson’s sit­u­a­tion reflect the broad­er uncer­tain­ty of the time, where mil­i­tary strat­e­gy and polit­i­cal maneu­ver­ing were inex­tri­ca­bly linked. Foster’s ini­tial steps to rein­force Fort Moul­trie and pre­pare Fort Sumter illus­trat­ed the Union’s efforts to main­tain con­trol over key strate­gic loca­tions, but his actions were con­tin­u­al­ly under­mined by the polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment. The ten­sion between mil­i­tary neces­si­ty and polit­i­cal real­i­ties grew sharp­er as the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment strug­gled to main­tain a uni­fied stance while South­ern states rapid­ly moved toward seces­sion. The deci­sions made by Ander­son, Fos­ter, and oth­ers would ulti­mate­ly con­tribute to the esca­la­tion of hos­til­i­ties, set­ting the stage for the events that would soon lead to the Civ­il War.