**Wig­fall, The Demon of Unrest: Chap­ter Sum­ma­ry**

On Sat­ur­day, April 13, from Edmund Ruffin’s per­spec­tive, the flag at Fort Sumter appeared to be miss­ing, prompt­ing con­cern among the offi­cers at Moul­trie who spec­u­lat­ed that Major Ander­son might be pre­pared to sur­ren­der. Brig. Gen. James Simons decid­ed to cease fire and instruct­ed for­mer U.S. sen­a­tor Col. Louis T. Wig­fall, a bois­ter­ous and hefty Tex­an, to row to Sumter to ascer­tain the sit­u­a­tion. Despite Wig­fal­l’s rep­u­ta­tion for heavy drink­ing and pas­sion­ate out­bursts, he accept­ed the mis­sion, eager to prove him­self.

Wig­fall com­man­deered a small, leaky boat with three enslaved oars­men, dis­re­gard­ing warn­ings about its unsafe con­di­tion. Ignor­ing the risk, Wig­fall insist­ed on pro­ceed­ing to Sumter, dri­ven by a sense of urgency for the trapped gar­ri­son. He informed Pri­vate William Gour­din Young of the Pal­met­to Guard that he was tasked with approach­ing Sumter under a flag of truce. How­ev­er, he hadn’t brought an actu­al flag, so they impro­vised a makeshift one from a hand­ker­chief and Young’s shirt threads, with Wig­fall rais­ing it dra­mat­i­cal­ly, recall­ing icon­ic moments from his­to­ry.

As they ven­tured fur­ther, they faced can­non fire from Fort Moul­trie, which Young per­ceived as a warn­ing to turn back. How­ev­er, Wig­fall remained stead­fast in his deter­mi­na­tion to ful­fill his mis­sion. The boat, now tak­ing on water due to increas­ing fire, strug­gled against the waves, yet they urged the oars­men to row hard­er.

Upon near­ing the fort, they encoun­tered destruc­tion: debris blocked their usu­al land­ing, and the main gate had burned away. When Wig­fall and Young arrived at the fort, they found no one to greet them. Wig­fall expressed a grim sense of fore­bod­ing about their sur­round­ings, hint­ing at the per­il of their mis­sion. Young’s anx­i­ety about the escap­ing oars­men led him to inter­vene force­ful­ly to ensure their return.

Even­tu­al­ly, two Union offi­cers, includ­ing Major Ander­son, emerged from the ruins of Sumter. Con­fused by Young’s pres­ence and the boat out­side, Ander­son learned of Wigfall’s inten­tions. As Young tried to safe­guard the oars­men against flee­ing, he was assured by Ander­son that they were safe, even amidst the chaos. This chap­ter encap­su­lates the tumul­tuous atmos­phere and the back­drop of urgency that char­ac­ter­ized the ear­ly moments of con­flict at Fort Sumter.