Which more than justifies Maj. Anderson's move to Fort Sumter.
rustbucket: "It would also put Anderson's forces in a situation where they could be starved out eventually.
Once in Fort Sumter, Anderson was offered free food supplies by the Governor, but Anderson refused the offer."
Our Lost Causers have posted endlessly on the subject of Gov. Pickens allegedly feeding Maj. Anderson's troops in Fort Sumter.
Some insist that such fresh food supplies continued up until the week before Lincoln's "war fleet" arrived on April 12.
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.