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But I've seen no historical evidence that Anderson received anything from Charleston while in Fort Sumter, and certainly his communications with Washington suggested nothing of the kind.

You might try searching in the Official Records, Serial 1, Volume 1, page 230-231.

Fort Sumter, S. C, April 1, 1861.
Maj. Robert Anderson, First Artillery, Commanding:
Major: In compliance with your request, I have the honor to submit the following list of provisions sold to Capt. J. G. Foster, Corps of Engineers, for the subsistence of the employes (sic) in his department at this post, and have expressed the quantities in numbers of rations, viz:
Five and one-half barrels of pork—one thousand four hundred and sixty-seven rations.
Twenty barrels of flour—three thousand four hundred and eighty five rations.
One hundred and eighty pounds hard bread—one hundred and eighty rations.
Two and one-half bushels of beans—one thousand rations.
One hundred and seventy-four pounds coffee—one thousand seven hundred and forty rations.
Seven hundred and seventy-four pounds sugar—five thousand one hundred and sixty rations.
These provisions, which have necessarily been consumed by others, would have added to the time we have already been at this post subsistence for the following number of days, respectively:
Pork—Sixteen and twenty-seven-ninetieths days.
Flour and hard bread—Forty and sixty-five-ninetieths days.
Beans—Eleven and one-ninth days.
Coffee—Nineteen and one-third days.
Sugar—Fifty-seven and one-third days.
Or, with what is now on hand, at least thirty-five days of comfortable subsistence for the command, including the laundresses, who were sent away about two months ago.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
NORMAN J. HALL,
Second Lieutenant, First Artillery, A. A. C. S.

Apparently, Anderson was buying provisions for the outside workmen who remained at the fort, but not for the soldiers. As I remember, the first time Anderson tried to procure beef and other food supplies back in January, the supplies did not arrive. It turned out that the supplier had not been paid for months. This was back when the US government had a severe shortage of money with which to pay its bills (a shortage that you have dismissed as non existent in the past). Even Congressmen were not getting regularly paid back then.

Somehow, Anderson was apparently able to get funding from the US government for the workmen's food supplies and to pay the back bills owed the supplier. But for the troops, Anderson for some reason decided to rely on the provisions he had brought over in the schooners his troops had hijacked in December. It was the food supplies for the troops that were about to run out. I don't know whether Washington's shortage of money contributed to Anderson's decision not buy food for the troops, but to use the food supplies he had brought to Fort Sumter in December to feed the troops.

Dumb decision on Anderson's part. He should have taken the governor up on the offer of food for the fort.

rustbucket: "This was back when the US government had a severe shortage of money with which to pay its bills (a shortage that you have dismissed as non existent in the past).
Even Congressmen were not getting regularly paid back then."

As I remember, any alleged "shortage of money" was instantly solved the same way all such "shortages" have from time-immemorial been solved -- when Congress authorized the treasury to borrow more money.

When did that happen?
Well, for certain on the last day of the 36th Congress, March 3, 1861, but also many times before that.

Consider: Northern Doughfaced Democrat President, New Hampshire's Franklin Pierce, personal friend of Jefferson Davis, was able to reduce the national debt from $66 million in 1852 to $29 million by the end of his term in 1857.
Pierce was a somewhat tragic figure and Democrat in the financial mold of Andrew Jackson.

He was followed in the Presidency by another Northern Doughfaced Democrat, Pennsylvania's James "Lightfoot" Buchanan, who increased the national debt back to $65 million by the end of 1860.
Considering these debt increases typically came a few million dollars at a time, we are looking at something like ten different Congressional actions over Buchanan's four years.

Where did all that money go?
Well... some went for a splendid naval adventure in Paraguay and some to suppressing the Mormon rebellion in Utah, and some kept a Colonel named RE Lee busy chasing "Indian savages" and Mexican "banditti" in Texas -- all those campaigns commanded by Southerners, by the way.

The rest was referred to by Republicans in their 1860 platform:

"That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extravagance which pervades every department of the Federal Government; that a return to rigid economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans; while the recent startling developments of frauds and corruptions at the Federal metropolis, show that an entire change of administration is imperatively demanded."

Yeh, they don't teach that at Lost Causers' school -- that through 1860 it was Democrats who corruptly squandered & pilfered the treasury for their own "favored partisans".

Just like today...