Monday April 8, 1861

South Carolina Notified

Lincoln's messengers, Robert S. Chew and Captain Theodore Talbot, having arrived in Charleston in the early evening, around 6 p.m., met with Governor Pickens. Chew read Lincoln's message and handed him a copy. The governor called in General Beauregard and read him the same message.

Beauregard refused Talbot's request to return to his post at Sumter or to communicate with Major Anderson. Beauregard remarked that he was under orders to permit no communication with Fort Sumter, unless it conveyed an order for its evacuation.

The interview over, Chew and Talbot were escorted to the railroad depot and left Charleston at 11 p.m.

In Washington, with both expeditions in the process of departing, Lincoln wrote to the governor of neighboring Pennsylvania, saying that the necessity of being ready "increases. Look to it."

Bibliography: OR, 251-52; Lincoln, Collected Works, ed. Basler, 4: 324.

Confederate Action

During this afternoon, the Confederate commissioners in Washington informed the Montgomery government that they had been formally notified by Seward that the United States refused recognition, reception, or negotiation with them. The Confederate secretary of war promptly alerted General Braxton Bragg, and repeated an order given earlier in the day to prevent the reinforcement of Fort Pickens at "every hazard."

Late that evening at Charleston, Governor Pickens and General Beauregard apprised the Confederate government of Lincoln's communication that "provisions would be sent to Sumter peaceably, otherwise by force." Davis immediately instructed Beauregard that "under no circumstances" was he to allow provisions to be sent to Fort Sumter."

Bibliography: OR, pp. 289, 291, 456-58; McWhiney, "Confederacy's First Shot," p. 12.