The
President readily agreed to my visit, if the Secretary of War
and General Scott raised no objection.
"Both these gentlemen consenting, I left Washington on the 19th
of March, and, passing through Richmond and Wilmington, reached
Charleston on the 21st."
Thus we see that, at the very moment when Mr. Secretary Seward was
renewing to the Confederate Government, through Judge Campbell, his
positive assurance that "the evacuation _would_ take place," this
emissary was on his way to Charleston to obtain information and devise
measures by means of which this promise might be broken.
On his arrival in Charleston, Mr. Fox tells us that he sought an
interview with Captain Hartstein, of the Confederate Navy, and through
this officer obtained from Governor Pickens permission to visit Fort
Sumter. He fails, in his narrative, to state what we learn from Governor
Pickens himself,[157] that this permission was obtained "expressly upon
the pledge of 'pacific purposes.'" Notwithstanding this pledge, he
employed the opportunity afforded by his visit to mature the details of
his plan for furnishing supplies and reenforcements to the garrison. He
did not, he says, communicate his plan or purposes to Major Anderson,
the commanding officer of the garrison, having discernment enough,
perhaps, to divine that the instincts of that brave and honest soldier
would have revolted at and rebuked the duplicity and perfidy of the
whole transaction.
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