Autograph letter signed by D.C. Buell
[CIVIL WAR] BUELL, Don Carlos (1818-1898), Assistant Adjutant General. Autograph letter signed (“D.C. Buell”), to Major Robert Anderson, Fort Moultrie, 11 December 1860. 2 pages, 8vo, written on recto and verso in pale ink, with a few discreet marginal repairs.
An important and recently-discovered autograph memorandum from Buell to Anderson, authorizing Anderson to abandon one of the three forts guarding Charleston Harbor. “...a collision of the troops with the people of this state shall be avoided…You are carefully to avoid every act which would needlessly to provoke aggression...But you are to hold possess...of the Forts and if attacked to defend yourself to the last extremity.” Buell’s recommendations would set the stage for the Confederate bombardment on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861—the opening battle of the Civil War.
Buell's memorandum reads, in full: “Memorandum of verbal instruction to Major Anderson 1st Artillery, Fort Moultrie. You are aware of the great anxiety of the Secyr. of War [John Floyd]. that a collision of the troops with the people of this state shall be avoided and of his studied determination to issue with reference to the military force and forts in the harbor which will guard against such collision. He has therefore carefullfully abstained from increasing the force at this point or taking any measure which might to the present excited state of the public or which would throw any doubt on the confidence he feels South Carolina will not attempt by violence to obtain possession of the public works or interfere with their occupancy!"
“But as the counsel and acts of rash impulsive persons may forcibly disappoint these expectations of the Government has deemed it proper you should be prepared with instructions to meet so unhappy an contingency. He has therefore directed me verbally to give you such instructions. “You are carefully to avoid every act which would needlessly to provoke aggression: And for that reason you are not without evident and imminent necessity to take up any position which could be construed into the assumption of a hostile attitude! But you are to hold possess ...of the Forts and if attacked to defend yourself to the last extremity."
"The smallness of your force will not permit you to occupy more than one [of] the three fort but an attack...attempt to take possession of any one regarded as an act of hostility and you may then put your command into either of them which you may deem most proper to increase the power of resistance. You are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you...tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act.”
Robert Hendrickson, Sumter: The First Day of the Civil War, p. 71, quoting this memorandum.