Fort Sumter Case

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina made a decision to secede from the United States Union. A few days later, from Charleston, South Carolina over 50 federal troops took off to Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is an island in the Charleston Harbor which was considered part of the Northern United States government. However, southerners from South Carolina thought it belonged to the new Confederacy. Four months later, the earliest Civil War engagement took place on this disputed soil.

Before his administration ended, President James Buchanan sent 200 soldiers and supplies on an unarmed merchant vessel to reinforce Commander Robert Anderson. Robert Anderson was the commanding officer at Fort Sumter, and he was labeled as a former slave owner who was unquestionably loyal to the Union. When the unarmed merchant boat reached its destination it quickly left because South Carolina weaponry began firing on it. Unfortunately, Anderson and his soldiers stationed at the harbor, no longer got support, food or supplies. The fate of Fort Sumter lay in the hands of the incoming president or presidents.

On February 1861, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the president of the Confederate States of America and a month later Abraham Lincoln took his oath of office as president of the Union.

Although Lincoln thought of the Southern secession as artificial, Jefferson Davis sent a group of commissioners to Washington to transfer Fort Sumter to South Carolina which was part of the Confederacy and solidify the separation. Now, it was more than evident that Lincoln needed to act urgently in order to reunite the United States and Fort Sumter. Lincoln was caught between a rock and a hard place because Fort Sumter was quickly running out of supplies and nearly every decision he made had the potential to end

badly.
Lincoln could not allow his troops to look neither aggressive nor weak because it could have a detrimental effect on Northern morale. For example if they looked aggressive then the people of the Union could begin feeling sympathetic towards the South and states like Virginia and North Carolina could be driven to secede as well. It was not long before President Lincoln created a plan to send supplies to the fort without weapons, troops, or ammunition. Then, the dilemma transferred to President Davis because if he attacked President Lincoln's resupply brigade it would make the South the violent party but he also could not allow the fort to be resupplied either. President Davis ordered Commander Anderson to surrender Fort Sumter, however, Anderson refused to yield and the Civil War began when one of Presidents Davis’s Generals opened fire. President Davis ordered the first shot to be fired on Fort Sumter thus, causing the start of the Civil War.
Since President Davis and most of the South choose war over negotiation I believe that Lincoln’s decision to resupply Fort Sumter was correct. President Lincoln always insisted that federal property, including forts in the South would be continually occupied and protected by the Union. Though he stressed that there was no need for bloodshed, he made his position extremely clear since he was first inaugurated in Washington, D.C. Fort Sumter was important because it symbolized the ability or inability of the Confederates to successfully secede and to drive out Federals from what they considered to be their land. The Confederate States were so determined to be a separate nation that they would not settle for less. Whether Lincoln attempted to resupply Fort Sumter or not, I believe the South would have attacked regardless. I support President Lincoln’s decision because he knew he had to do anything and everything to hold on to Fort Sumter or otherwise acknowledge the success of Confederate secession and the death of the Union.