The Sumter Expe­di­tion unfold­ed on April 13, with Cap­tain Fox and his crew prepar­ing their com­man­deered schooner for a cru­cial oper­a­tion near the Charleston Bar. The morn­ing air was filled with ten­sion as they assessed their posi­tion, know­ing that their actions could influ­ence the unfold­ing bat­tle at Fort Sumter. The weath­er, though clear, pre­sent­ed its own chal­lenges, with strong winds mak­ing maneu­ver­abil­i­ty dif­fi­cult. As the crew remained on high alert, a thick col­umn of black smoke sud­den­ly appeared on the hori­zon, sig­nal­ing height­ened hos­til­i­ties with­in Charleston Har­bor. This omi­nous sight only inten­si­fied the uncer­tain­ty among Fox’s men, who anx­ious­ly antic­i­pat­ed their next move while remain­ing vig­i­lant for any threats.

At the same time, Cap­tain Rowan aboard the Pawnee grew increas­ing­ly impa­tient, press­ing for imme­di­ate engage­ment with Con­fed­er­ate forces. How­ev­er, Cap­tain Fox rec­og­nized the dan­ger of act­ing hasti­ly with­out full naval sup­port. He under­stood that with­out the Powhatan, their fleet was sig­nif­i­cant­ly out­matched, mak­ing a direct assault a reck­less endeav­or. His expe­ri­ence and strate­gic mind­set pre­vent­ed a pre­ma­ture strike that could have led to dis­as­ter. Instead, Fox urged his men to remain patient and dis­ci­plined, wait­ing for the right moment to act. The absence of the Powhatan was an unex­pect­ed set­back, one that forced the Union forces to recon­sid­er their approach in the face of mount­ing pres­sure.

As the sounds of gun­fire echoed across the water, Fox remained stead­fast, care­ful­ly weigh­ing the sit­u­a­tion before com­mit­ting his forces. The crew, though rest­less, fol­lowed his orders, under­stand­ing that their sur­vival depend­ed on pre­cise exe­cu­tion rather than impul­sive action. The stakes were high, and each deci­sion car­ried the poten­tial to alter the tra­jec­to­ry of the bat­tle. In the midst of ris­ing ten­sions, Fox’s lead­er­ship became even more cru­cial, as he sought to nav­i­gate the com­plex tac­ti­cal land­scape with lim­it­ed resources. The Con­fed­er­ate forces had the upper hand in both fire­pow­er and posi­tion­ing, mak­ing any mis­cal­cu­la­tion poten­tial­ly cat­a­stroph­ic.

Mean­while, Charleston Har­bor was alive with move­ment as Con­fed­er­ate troops rein­forced their posi­tions, ful­ly pre­pared for an attack. The city’s defens­es had been care­ful­ly strength­ened in antic­i­pa­tion of Union rein­force­ments attempt­ing to break through. Observers on the shore not­ed the rest­less Union ves­sels lin­ger­ing off­shore, uncer­tain whether they would advance or with­draw. Inside Fort Sumter, Major Ander­son and his men remained cut off, bat­tered by con­tin­u­ous shelling and aware that their posi­tion was becom­ing unten­able. The Union fleet’s inde­ci­sion only wors­ened their predica­ment, leav­ing them to won­der if relief would come before it was too late.

The longer Fox and his fleet delayed their advance, the more the Con­fed­er­ates solid­i­fied their grip on the har­bor. The Union’s strate­gic dilem­ma lay in bal­anc­ing the urgency of Fort Sumter’s sit­u­a­tion against the real­i­ty of their own mil­i­tary dis­ad­van­tage. Despite their deter­mi­na­tion, they lacked the fire­pow­er to launch an effec­tive res­cue with­out addi­tion­al rein­force­ments. Fox’s reluc­tance to act with­out prop­er sup­port under­scored his under­stand­ing of naval war­fare, rec­og­niz­ing that any failed maneu­ver would not only cost lives but also embold­en the Con­fed­er­a­cy. With no sign of the Powhatan, the mis­sion remained in lim­bo, and the weight of inde­ci­sion loomed heav­i­ly over the Union forces.

By the after­noon, the fate of Fort Sumter was all but sealed. Con­fed­er­ate bom­bard­ment con­tin­ued relent­less­ly, and Major Anderson’s men were near­ing exhaus­tion. The Sumter Expe­di­tion, orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed as a life­line, now stood as an emblem of missed oppor­tu­ni­ty. Though Fox’s cau­tion pre­vent­ed an out­right cat­a­stro­phe, it also meant that Fort Sumter had to with­stand the Con­fed­er­ate siege alone. As the sun began to set, the Union fleet remained stalled, caught between the urgency of the moment and the stark real­i­ty of their lim­i­ta­tions, while the war that would define a nation was just begin­ning.