“Some of us know that the Mayor or Governor (don’t remember which) back in January 1861 offered to provide Anderson with food for his troops at Fort Sumter. Anderson refused the offer, preferring instead to buy food in Charleston. The Confederates let Anderson do that until April 7....Some “bread to the starving garrison” that was.” - rustbucket
Really? So - according to you - Ft Sumter didn’t need supplies? Pity Fort Sumter didn’t bother to inform Washington, which sent two expeditions to deliver supplies!
“Anderson’s move to Fort Sumter had its drawbacks for the Union garrison. In the hasty evacuation of Fort Moultrie, most of Anderson’s supplies had to be left behind. The withdrawal forced Anderson, as he later wrote to Washington, “to sacrifice the greater part of my stores as it is now too late to attempt their removal.” The stage was set for a confrontation at Fort Sumter that no one wanted.
The Union soldiers were well-protected in the fort, but they could only hold out as long as their supplies lasted. “We have one [month’s] supply of hospital stores and about four months’ supply of provisions for my command,” Anderson reported to Washington about the situation at Fort Sumter. If Anderson and his men were to hold the fort for long against the Southerners, they would soon have to receive supplies and reinforcements...
...In February, U.S. Navy Captain James Ward proposed a plan for several light-draft steamers loaded with men and provisions to run past the Confederate guns and land at Fort Sumter. It was a daring plan that called for Ward and his men to abandon their steamers and join Anderson’s beleaguered garrison inside Fort Sumter. He proposed to employ four or more small steamers belonging to the U.S. Coastal Survey to make the landing.
Many officials in Washington felt that Ward’s plan had every prospect of success. Nonetheless, outgoing President James Buchanan, fearing the operation might provoke a Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, refused to authorize the plan...
...On March 19, 1861, Fox was dispatched to Charleston to visit Fort Sumter. “Our Uncle Abe Lincoln has taken a high esteem for me,” Fox wrote to his wife, “and wishes me to take dispatches to Major Anderson at Fort Sumter with regard to its final evacuation and to obtain a clear statement of his condition which his letters, probably guarded, do not fully exhibit.”
The trip gave Fox the opportunity to observe firsthand the situation at Fort Sumter. Upon his return to Washington, he finally won over those who were skeptical of his plan. With the help of Commodore Silas H. Stringham, the Navy Department’s detailing officer, Fox finally convinced Lincoln of the rescue plan’s viability.”
“When he delivered his inaugural address, the new President assumed that there was time for southern pro-union sentiment, which he greatly overestimated, to reassert itself, making a peaceful resolution to the crisis possible. The next morning, however, he received a letter from Robert Anderson informing him that Fort Sumter’s supplies would be exhausted in four to six weeks [mid-April at the latest] and that it would take a 20,000-man force to reinforce the fort.”
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3059
“In the early hours of April 12, approximately nine hours after the Confederates had first asked Anderson to evacuate Fort Sumter, the envoys were again rowed out to the garrison. They made an offer: if Anderson would state when he and his men intended to quit the fort, the Confederates would hold their fire. Anderson called a council of his officers: How long could they hold out? Five days at most, he was told, which meant three days with virtually no food.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fort-sumter-the-civil-war-begins-1018791/
Pity even the officers of Fort Sumter didn’t know they had been supplied with food bought in Charleston all along! Pity NO ONE knew the fort had ample food! Pity the commander of the fort LIED to Lincoln, isn’t it.... < / sarcasm >
It's a most curious claim from our Lost Causers -- that Anderson was not really out of food, not really short of supplies, that he could have held out much longer.
But if so, why would he tell his superiors in Washington that his deadline was effectively Aril 15?
And why would he repeat that to Confederate authorities demanding his surrender?
It makes no sense and there's no evidence for it I've ever seen.
Which leads to the question: why would Lost Causers lie about it?
[You] Really? So - according to you - Ft Sumter didn’t need supplies? Pity Fort Sumter didn’t bother to inform Washington, which sent two expeditions to deliver supplies!
From "Days of Defiance" by Maury Klein, page 246-247:
Food posed another obvious yet subtle problem. The truce allowed the garrison to procure supplies in the Charleston markets as they had always done. In January Pickens had sent to Sumter a supply of fresh meet and vegetables, telling Anderson he would provide more every day on order from the major. The excited troops carried the food directly to the kitchen only to be told by Anderson to return everything to the boat. In a polite note he told Pickens that he could accept nothing that was not purchased by his own men in the usual way. The men mourned their loss but made no complaint.
A few days later Anderson wrote the contractor who had always supplies him with beef to renew his shipments, but no meat came. Anderson suspected that the contractor feared reprisals if he sold to the Yankees, but the explanation proved even simpler. The contractor had not been paid for seven months and hesitated to ship more meat. Once money reached his hands, the shipment of beef resumed. Still supplies remained tight.
Was there a problem with accessing enough money from the federal government to feed the soldiers, the women in the fort, and the various civilian workers that remained in the fort? The federal government was having severe budget problems at this time. Seeing his shrinking food supply, Anderson asked Pickens if he could remove the 42 women and children from the fort. The women and children had been taken Fort Sumter in a ship that Anderson's men had kidnapped by overpowering the ship captain and putting him in the hold. The captain didn't want to take them to Fort Sumter, a voyage forbidden by the SC government.
It is possible that the Confederate government might have put some restrictions of food going to the fort, particularly when the food began to be running out, and the government realized they might starve the soldiers out of the fort. But on April 1, 1861, a large quantity of food was purchased in Charleston by Anderson's Captain Foster for his "employees" (the civilian workers who remained in the fort). The food was consumed by the civilian workers. Why wasn't there federal money enough to get food for the soldiers too? Was the government still having not enough income to meet the government's expenses? Anyway, for whatever reason, the food supplies for the soldiers continued to dwindle.
On April 7, Anderson sends a note to Washington saying, "You will see by the inclosed letter, just received from Brigadier-General Beauregard that we shall not get any more supplies from the city of Charleston." The Confederates knew the warships and troops were coming from the North.