John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[16] damages to be settled by negotiation. The hypothesis and its parent dogma were of course both palpably false and absurd. The Government of the United States, unlike other great nations, has steadily opposed the maintenance of a large military force in time of peace. The whole regular army amounted to only a little over seventeen thousand men. These, as usual, were mainly occupied in defence of the western frontier against hostile Indian tribes. Consequently, but three of these southern forts were garrisoned, and they by only about a company each. An equal force was stationed for the protection of the arsenals at Augusta, Ga., Mt. Vernon, Ala., and Baton Rouge, La.

As a necessary part of the conspiracy, the governors of the Cotton States now, by official order to their extemporized militia companies, took forcible possession of these forts, arsenals, navy-yard, custom-houses, and other property, in many cases even before their secession ordinances were passed. This was nothing less than levying actual war against the United States, though as yet attended by no violence or bloodshed. The ordinary process was, the sudden appearance of a superior armed force, a demand for surrender in the name of the State, and the compliance under protest by the officer in charge-salutes to the flag, peaceable evacuation, and unmolested transit home being graciously permitted as military courtesy. To this course of procedure three exceptions occurred: first, no attempt was made against Fort Taylor at Key West, Fort Jefferson on Tortugas Island, and Fort Pickens at Pensacola, on account of the distance and danger; second, part of the troops in Texas were eventually refused the promised transit and captured; and third, the forts in Charleston Harbor underwent peculiar vicissitudes, to be specially narrated in the next chapter.