claim to independence was
denied, their commissioners were refused a hearing; yet not an angry
word, provoking threat, nor harmful act had come from President Lincoln.
He had promised them peace, protection, freedom from irritation; had
offered them the benefit of the mails. Even now, all he proposed to do
was--not to send guns or ammunition or men to Sumter, but only bread and
provisions to Anderson and his soldiers. His prudent policy placed them
in the exact attitude described a month earlier in his inaugural; they
could have no conflict without being themselves the aggressors. But the
rebellion was organized by ambitious men with desperate intentions. A
member of the Alabama legislature, present at Montgomery, said to
Jefferson Davis and three members of his cabinet: "Gentlemen, unless you
sprinkle blood in the face of the people of Alabama, they will be back
in the old Union in less than ten days." And the sanguinary advice was
adopted. In answer to his question, "What instructions?" Beauregard on
April 10 was ordered to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter, and, in
case of refusal, to reduce it.

The demand was presented to Anderson, who replied that he would evacuate
the fort by noon of April 15, unless assailed, or unless he received
supplies or controlling instructions from his government. This answer
being unsatisfactory to Beauregard, he sent Anderson notice that he
would open fire on Sumter at 4:20 on the morning of April 12.

Promptly at the hour indicated the bombardment was begun. As has been
related, the rebel siege-works were built on the points of the islands
forming the harbor, at distances varying from thirteen hundred to
twenty-five hundred yards, and numbered nineteen batteries, with an
armament of forty-seven guns, supported by a land force of from four to
six thousand volunteers. The disproportion between means of attack and
defense was enormous. Sumter, though a work three hundred by three
hundred and fifty feet in size, with well-constructed walls and
casemates of brick, was in very meager preparation for such a conflict.
Of its forty-eight available guns, only twenty-one were in the
casemates, twenty-seven being on the rampart _en barbette_. The garrison
consisted of nine commissioned officers, sixty-eight non-commissioned
officers and privates, eight musicians, and forty-three non-combatant
workmen compelled by the besiegers to remain to hasten the consumption
of provisions.

Under the fir