Ok… it’s put up or shut up time. I have studied the Civil War for years and I have never seen these Anderson letters. Why don’t you post them so all of us can see them.
I know Lincoln wrote Governor Pickens when he sent the resupply ships south promising they would only resupply Andersons detachment unless they were fired upon. Well the Confederates didn’t wait for the ships to get there. They opened fire first. Lincoln didn’t shoot first, the Confederates did.
Ok… it’s put up or shut up time. I have studied the Civil War for years and I have never seen these Anderson letters. Why don’t you post them so all of us can see them.
There was a time some years ago when I kept a series of bookmarks for ready reference to find documents like this, but over time, the links went dead, and I have changed computers, so it's no longer so easy to find things I used to have.
But I remembered enough of a snippet of what he said that a google search found a bit more of it. Here is that snippet, and with it you can likely find the rest of the letter. I believe it was written April 8, 1861, but i'm not sure.
Major Robert Anderson
"We shall strive to do our duty, though I frankly say that my heart is not in this war, which I see is to be thus commenced."
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You do the legwork on this.
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I know Lincoln wrote Governor Pickens when he sent the resupply ships south promising they would only resupply Andersons detachment unless they were fired upon.
"Unless resisted."
"Resisted" could mean anything and it was left to Captain Mercer to decide what "resisted" is supposed to mean in context.
And given they had strung chains across the channel and set up cannons to blow anyone up trying to move through it, I think "resisted" is already baked into the cake.
https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~billie0w/books/fort_sumter/Fort_Sumter.html#28