Gustavus Fox and the Relief of Fort Sumter

GUSTAVUS FOX AND THE RELIEF OF FORT SUMTER Art Hoogenboom Intensely loyal to the Union, Gustavus Vasa Fox early in 1861 conceived a plan to relieve Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter. Fox's enthusiastic unionism was heightened by a background that included a distinguished naval career and an alliance through marriage with the prominent Francis Preston Blair family. Fox and Montgomery Blair both married daughters of Levi Woodbury, Jackson's Navy Secretary and also Secretary of the Treasury under Jackson and Van Buren. Fox's political views were those of the Blair family—particularly Montgomery Blair, who became Lincoln's Postmaster General—and in January, 1861, there was no more confirmed patriot than Montgomery. "I am for the Union," he declared to Fox, "now and forever, and against all its enemies , whether fire-eaters or abolitionists."1 It was therefore natural that Fox should devise a Sumter relief scheme and that it should be adopted by the Lincoln administration. Fort Sumter, situated on an island in the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, would be difficult to succor. Any relief for the fortress had to come by sea, and frenzied South Carolinians were almost certain to attack such an expedition. Charleston boasted more fire-eaters than any other Southern city, and Anderson's brilliant withdrawal from Fort Moultrie to Sumter on December 26 had increased their ire. When the Star of the West attempted to reinforce Anderson on January 9, South Carolina fired on the flag of the United States, the ship turned back, and the Buchanan administration ignored the insult. Emboldened by the apparent success of their audacity, South Carolinians surrounded Sumter with batteries. Each passing day these batteries became more Mr. Hoogenboom is a member of the history department at Pennsylvania State University. The author of a study of the civil service reform movement, he is now working on a biography of Gustavus Fox. !Robert Means Thompson and Richard Wainwright (eds.), Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox: Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1861-1865 (New York, 1918-19), I, 5 (hereafter cited as Fox Correspondence). 383 384ARI HOOGENBOOM powerful, Anderson's position more tenuous, and a successful relief expedition potentially more difficult.2 By the end of January General Winfield Scott, who through Montgomery Blair had heard of Fox's plan, invited him to Washington. In early February Fox presented his plan to Scott. Realizing that obstructions prevented any deep-draft, heavily armed war vessels from entering the harbor, Fox devised a scheme to protect light craft that could actually be employed. Using a "large, comfortable sea steamer" to transport troops and stores to the bar off Charleston, Fox would then utilize two powerful light-draft New York tugboats to run them in to the fort. Accompanying these vessels would be the efficient revenue cutter Harriet Lane and the heavily-gunned Pawnee. If the landing would be opposed ("a feint or flag of truce would ascertain this"), Fox would move the Pawnee and Harriet Lane up to the bar and destroy any Confederate vessels or at least drive them to shore. Anderson would open fire on any hostile vessels within range ofhis guns andprevent aid from Charleston. "Having dispersed this force," Fox optimistically concluded, the only obstacles are the forts on Cumming's Point and Fort Moultrie, and whatever adjacent batteries they may have erected distant on either hand from mid-channel about three-quarters of a mile. At night, two hours before high water, with half the force on board of each tug within relieving distance of each other, I should run in to Fort Sumpter. While in Washington, Fox had several interviews with Scott, Secretary of War Joseph Holt, and Lieutenant Norman C. Hall of the Fort Sumter garrison, who was currently in the capital and would soon brief Anderson on Fox's plan. "The Union looks better," Fox optimistically wrote his wife Virginia. "My plan will be adopted if it becomes certain that reinforcements must be sent."3 But Buchanan was never certain about reinforcements. Although the cabinet discussed Fox's plan, nothing came of it. Scott, Holt, and Navy Secretary Isaac Toucey had already assembled a relief expedition in New York consisting of four...