No _written_ answer to the note of the Commissioners was delivered to
them for twenty-seven days after it was written. The paper of Mr.
Seward, in reply, without signature or address, dated March 15th,[153]
was "filed," as he states, on that day, in the Department of State, but
a copy of it was not handed to the Commissioners until the 8th of April.
But an oral answer had been made to the note of the Commissioners at a
much earlier date, for the significance of which it will be necessary to
bear in mind the condition of affairs at Charleston and Pensacola.
Fort Sumter was still occupied by the garrison under command of Major
Anderson, with no material change in the circumstances since the failure
of the attempt made in January to reenforce it by means of the Star of
the West. This standing menace at the gates of the chief harbor of South
Carolina had been tolerated by the government and people of that State,
and afterward by the Confederate authorities, in the abiding hope that
it would be removed without compelling a collision of forces. Fort
Pickens, on one side of the entrance to the harbor of Pensacola, was
also occupied by a garrison of United States troops, while the two forts
(Barrancas and McRee) on the other side were in possession of the
Confederates. Communication by sea was not entirely precluded, however,
in the case of Fort Pickens; the garrison had been strengthened, and a
fleet of Federal men-of-war was lying outside of the harbor.
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