In his inaugural he had promised the
people of the South peace and protection, and offered them the
benefit of the mails. Even now, all he proposed to do was to send
bread to Anderson and his hungry soldiers. His prudent policy
placed them where, as he had told them, they could have no war
unless they themselves chose to begin it.
They did choose to begin it. The rebellion was the work of
ambitious men, who had no mind to stop at that late day and see
their labor go for nothing. The officer in charge of their
batteries was ordered to open fire on Fort Sumter if Anderson
refused to surrender; and in the dim light of dawn on April 12,
1861, just as the outline of Fort Sumter began to show itself
against a brightening sky, the shot that opened the Civil War
rose from a rebel battery and made its slow and graceful curve
upon Sumter. Soon all the batteries were in action, and the fort
was replying with a will. Anderson held out for a day and a half,
until his cartridges were all used up, his flagstaff had been
shot away, and the wooden buildings inside the fort were on fire.
Then, as the ships with supplies had not yet arrived, and he had
neither food nor ammunition, he was forced to surrender.
The news of the firing upon Fort Sumter changed the mood of the
country as if by magic. By deliberate act of the Confederate
government its attempt at peaceable secession had been changed to
active war.
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