I feel as if it is a waste of my time to look up and post the salient communications for your benefit, because I know from past history you will simply pretend I didn't do it, and then you will ask this same question, or variation thereof, again and again.
- Adjutant-General.HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, Washington, D. C., April 4, 1861.
Lieutenant Colonel HENRY L. SCOTT, A. D. C., New York:
SIR: This letter will be landed to you by Captain G. V. Fox, ex-officer of the Navy, and a gentleman of high standing, as well as possessed of extraordinary nautical ability. He is charged by high authority here with the command of an expedition, under cover of certain ships of war, whose object is to re-enforce Fort Sumter.
To embark with Captain Fox you will cause a detachment of recruits, say about two hundred, to be immediately organized at Fort Columbus, with a competent number of officers, arms, ammunition, and subsistence. A large surplus of the latter-indeed, as great as the vessels of the expedition can take-with other necessaries, will be needed for the augmented garrison of Fort Sumter.
The subsistence and other supplies should be assorted like those which were provided by you and Captain Ward of the Navy for a former expedition. Consult Captain Fox and Major Eaton on the subject, and give all necessary orders in my name to fit out the expedition, except that the hiring of vessels will be left to others.
Some fuel must be shipped. Oil, artillery implements, fuses, cordage, slow-march, mechanical levers, and gins, &c., should also be put on board.
Consult, also, if necessary, confidentially, Colonel Tompkins and Major Thornton.
Respectfully, yours,
WINFIELD SCOTT.
https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records/001/0236
BroJoeK, I will point out to you that the Pickens letter was not sent until two days later. Reinforcement was already the plan before the Pickens letter went out.
Doing that font thing only serves to illustrate what an idiot you are.
Read the orders sent by Secretary of the Navy Welles and Secretary of War Cameron. They give a different picture of what the expedition was ordered to do. General Scott had a different understanding of what was going on than members of the cabinet did. The fog of war.
And yet you do while ignoring all the evidence that had the South allowed Fort Sumter to be resupplied then reinforcements would not have been landed.
Your problem is, you post only those quotes which best support your opinions and ignore any others, such as these final orders to Lincoln's resupply mission commanders:
The primary object of the expedition is to provision Fort Sumter, for which purpose the War Department will furnish the necessary transports.
Should the authorities of Charleston permit the fort to be supplied, no further particular service will be required of the force under your command, and, after being satisfied that supplies have been received at the fort, the Powhatan, Pocahontas and Harriet Lane will return to New York, and the Pawnee to Washington.
Should the authorities at Charleston, however, refuse to permit or attempt to prevent the vessel or vessels having supplies on board from entering the harbor or from peaceably proceeding to Fort Sumter, you will protect the transports or boats of the expedition in the object of this mission -- disposing of your force in such a manner as to open the way for their ingress, and afford, so far as practicable, security to the men and boats, and repelling, by force if necessary, all obstructions to provisioning the fort and reinforcing it; for in case of resistance to the peaceable primary object of the expedition, a reinforcement of the garrison will also be attempted."
In short: resupply only, no first use of force, if force required, then only to resupply & reinforce Fort Sumter.
There were no orders -- none, zero, nada orders -- to attack Confederates surrounding Fort Sumter.