To Sell or Col­lide, South Car­oli­na was final­iz­ing its plans to attack Fort Sumter in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary, with con­struc­tion near­ly com­plet­ed at Cum­mings Point. Major Ander­son, sta­tioned at the fort, shared his con­cerns with Adju­tant Coop­er, hop­ing the state would recon­sid­er the attack that had been long antic­i­pat­ed. At the same time, the Hall-Hayne mis­sion to Wash­ing­ton faced chal­lenges due to mis­un­der­stand­ings about the strate­gic val­ue of the fort. Hayne, the South Car­oli­na Attor­ney Gen­er­al, arrived at the White House expect­ing a smooth nego­ti­a­tion, intend­ing to press a legal claim for the fort’s sur­ren­der under emi­nent domain. He believed this would be a sim­ple process, sim­i­lar to nego­ti­at­ing land rights for a rail­road.

How­ev­er, U.S. War Sec­re­tary Holt quick­ly reject­ed Hayne’s claims, empha­siz­ing that the pres­i­dent did not have the author­i­ty to trans­fer fed­er­al prop­er­ty. Only Con­gress could approve such actions, and Holt mis­cal­cu­lat­ed the South­ern per­spec­tive, claim­ing the fort was only there for nation­al defense and posed no threat to South Carolina’s hon­or. This state­ment enraged Hayne, who felt his state’s pride and posi­tion were being ignored, lead­ing to increased ten­sion between the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and the seced­ing states.

As ten­sions esca­lat­ed, Gov­er­nor Pick­ens of South Car­oli­na com­mu­ni­cat­ed his thoughts on the mil­i­tary sit­u­a­tion. He sug­gest­ed in sev­er­al let­ters that the fed­er­al troop increas­es in Wash­ing­ton were a direct affront to the South, indi­cat­ing a need for imme­di­ate action. Pick­ens pro­posed that Mary­land and Vir­ginia seize North­ern cap­i­tals and forts in a bold move to dis­rupt North­ern con­trol, believ­ing this rapid action would either force a res­o­lu­tion or pre­vent a pro­longed civ­il war.

In the midst of this con­flict, for­mer Sen­a­tor James Ham­mond shared his thoughts with a close friend, eager­ly await­ing the onset of war. He expressed frus­tra­tion with the ongo­ing debates and crit­i­cized oppos­ing views on slav­ery, argu­ing that the South’s eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty deserved greater respect. Ham­mond felt that only through con­flict could the South secure its future and main­tain its way of life.

Mean­while, back at Fort Sumter, Major Ander­son received a deeply emo­tion­al let­ter from his wife, Eba, detail­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with a South­ern planter. She expressed her grow­ing dis­ap­point­ment with South Carolina’s stance on the fort and her frus­tra­tion with the esca­lat­ing con­flict. Eba con­veyed her belief that if Ander­son were to aban­don the fort, she would not be con­tent, sug­gest­ing instead that he should destroy the fort before leav­ing, illus­trat­ing the deep emo­tion­al divide and ide­o­log­i­cal rift in the South dur­ing this volatile peri­od.

South Car­oli­na’s deci­sion to pri­or­i­tize mil­i­tary action high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cant divi­sions between the state and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. At the heart of the issue was the ques­tion of hon­or, with many in South Car­oli­na per­ceiv­ing the fort as a sym­bol of fed­er­al con­trol and a threat to their auton­o­my. This con­fronta­tion at Fort Sumter ulti­mate­ly served as a piv­otal moment in the lead-up to the Civ­il War, illus­trat­ing how both ide­o­log­i­cal and emo­tion­al fac­tors played a cru­cial role in shap­ing the actions of key play­ers on both sides.

The debates over the fort’s fate also high­light­ed the evolv­ing role of South­ern lead­ers like Hayne and Pick­ens, who increas­ing­ly saw mil­i­tary action as the only viable solu­tion to their con­cerns. They believed that by con­fronting the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment direct­ly, they could assert their sov­er­eign­ty and secure the South’s future. How­ev­er, this approach led to a trag­ic mis­cal­cu­la­tion, as it set the stage for a war that would change the course of Amer­i­can his­to­ry for­ev­er.

In addi­tion, the emo­tion­al cor­re­spon­dence between Major Ander­son and his wife revealed the per­son­al toll the con­flict was tak­ing on indi­vid­u­als. Ander­son, torn between his duty to the Union and his loy­al­ty to his South­ern roots, found him­self at the cen­ter of a deeply per­son­al and nation­al cri­sis. His wife’s let­ter under­scored the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ties faced by those involved in the con­flict, par­tic­u­lar­ly as the ide­o­log­i­cal divi­sions between the North and South deep­ened.

The sit­u­a­tion at Fort Sumter was not just a mil­i­tary stand­off but also a sym­bol of the ide­o­log­i­cal and emo­tion­al forces that were dri­ving the nation toward civ­il war. As lead­ers on both sides debat­ed their posi­tions, they were not only con­tend­ing with polit­i­cal and strate­gic con­sid­er­a­tions but also with deeply held beliefs about hon­or, auton­o­my, and the future of the nation. The events sur­round­ing the fort ulti­mate­ly under­scored the pro­found ide­o­log­i­cal divide that exist­ed with­in the Unit­ed States, set­ting the stage for the Civ­il War’s out­break.