Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

“ [120] through the regular channels ;” ¹ that is, through Lieutenant-General Scott, the general-in-chief.

Major Anderson did not suspect, that in addressing the chief of the War Department of his Government through the Adjutant-General, he was assailing ears deafened to such patriotic appeals by rank treason, and that he was laying before confederates of South Carolina politicians information of the weakness of national forts, that would give them pleasure rather than pain. Yet it was so. Adjutant-General Samuel Cooper, a native of the State of New York, had married a sister of Senator Mason, one of the arch-conspirators of Virginia, and was doubtless fully informed of the plans of the public enemies; for on the 3d of March, 1861, a little more than three months later, he left his office at Washington, hastened to Montgomery, Alabama, the Headquarters of the confederated conspirators, and was by them made adjutant-general of the insurgent forces, then preparing for the revolt. John B. Floyd, the Secretary of War, was, at the very time we are considering, stripping the arsenals of

Samuel Cooper.

the North of guns and ammunition, and transferring them to the South, for the use of the conspirators. Let us look at the testimony of official records on this point.

From the beginning of the session, there was evident alarm among the conspirators in Congress whenever there was any intimation that official inquiry would be made concerning the condition of forts and arsenals in the Slave-labor States. When, on the 20th of December, Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire, called up a resolution he had offered in the Senate, asking the President for information concerning the condition of the forts and arsenals at Charleston, and their relation to the National Government and citizens of South Carolina, and for the official correspondence on the subject, Hunter and Mason of Virginia, Davis of Mississippi, Saulsbury of Delaware, and others, vehemently opposed it, on the pretext that such action would tend to increase the excitement in the public mind. On that occasion, Davis made a peculiar exhibition of his dishonesty and flimsy sophistry. He said such an inquiry would inflame the public mind, and result in an “irreparable injury to the public peace and future hopes of those who look forward to an amicable solution of existing difficulties.” He (the President) had no power to increase the garrison at Fort Moultrie, and, if he had, the act would be unwise. He had heard that the troops in Fort Moultrie were hostile to the city of Charleston. If so, they ought to be removed. He hoped there would be no collision. He hoped the troops would simply hold the fort until peaceably transferred to other duty; “but if there is danger,” he said, “permit me here to say that it is because there are troops in it, not because the garrison is too weak. Who hears of any danger of the seizure of forts where there is no garrison? ”