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alert against surprise or sudden assault; but even this was not given by the President before January 3, 1861, when it was too late.1 He went to Washington City on the 12th of December, and on the following day begged the Secretary of War to re-enforce the Southern forts.
The Secretary did not coincide in his views.
He then asked Floyd to procure for him an early interview with the President.
That interview occurred on the 15th, when the subject of secession and the strengthening of the forts was freely discussed.
In reply to Scott's suggestion to send re-enforcements immediately to Charleston harbor, the President said the time for such measures had not arrived.
He expected the Convention of South Carolinians, who would assemble on the 17th, would send commissioners to him, to negotiate with him and Congress respecting the secession of the State, and the property of the United States within its limits, and that, if Congress should decide against secession, then he would send a re-enforcement, and order Major Anderson to hold the forts against attack.2
The last sentence gave Floyd a new idea of a method to aid the conspiracy.
The Virginia traitors (of whom he was the chief, in efficient action), at that time, contemplated the seizure of the immense Fortress Monroe at Hampton Roads, which guarded the great Navy Yard at Norfolk, and would be of vast importance to the conspirators in executing the scheme entertained by Wise and others, of seizing the National Capital before Lincoln's inauguration, and taking possession of the Government.
Floyd would gladly weaken the garrison of Fortress Monroe for that purpose, at the expense of the Charleston forts; and he now said quickly, and with great animation, “We have a vessel-of-war (the Brooklyn) held in readiness at Norfolk, and I will send three hundred men in her, from Fort Monroe to Charleston.”
Scott replied that so many men could not be spared from Fortress Monroe, but might be taken from New York.3 No doubt it was Floyd's intention, had the President ordered re-enforcements to Charleston, to take them from the already small garrison in Fortress Monroe.4
1 See Memoir of Lieutenant-General Scott, Ll. D., written by himself, II. 622.
3 The same, II. 614.
4 “The plan invented by General Scott to stop secession,” said the Richmond Examiner, in a eulogy of Floyd, “like all campaigns devised by him, was very able in its details, and nearly certain of general success. The Southern States are full of arsenals and forts, commanding their rivers and strategic points. General Scott desired to transfer the Army of the United States to these forts as speedily and quietly as possible. The Southern States could not cut off communication between the Government and the fortresses without a great fleet, which they cannot build for years,--or take them by land without one hundred thousand men, many hundred millions of dollars, several campaigns, and many a bloody siege. Had Scott been able to have got these forts in the condition he desired them to be, the Southern Confederacy would not now exist.”
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