John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[28] in which children play at kings and queens. The commissioners reached Washington on December 26th, and Mr. Buchanan, with all the curiosity and palpitation of an actor in a new drama, seems to have looked upon it not as the miserable farce of conspiracy which it was, but as a real piece of government business. The commissioners immediately made their presence known, and the President appointed an interview for them at one o'clock next day. Before that hour arrived, however, news of a totally unlooked — for event gave their intended negotiation an entirely new direction and result.

That event was the sudden military movement by Major Anderson, transferring his entire garrison from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, on the night of the commissioners' arrival in Washington, December 26. Daily observation left him no doubt that Moultrie was to be assaulted; every day strengthened the design, increased the preparation, augmented the drilled and undrilled forces to be joined in the undertaking. There was no longer hope that the President would heed his repeated calls and send him reinforcements. There was, however, one resource yet available. Sumter was the real key to the harbor. Captain Foster and his engineer force of workmen and mechanics had now prepared it for occupancy, and could soon make it ready for defence. Its guns commanded Moultrie. There was no approach to it except by boats, and, for a time, at least, he would be beyond the reach of the Charleston mob and its improvised scaling-ladders. Thoughts like these long-present and familiar to his mind, were once more carefully revolved and re-examined, when on Christmas night he returned from a neighboring holiday merrymaking to his somewhat cheerless quarters in Moultrie; and before he retired to his sleep, he took his secret resolve to abandon Moultrie and take post in Sumter.