When the regime fired on Fort Sumter.
The violation of the armistice was, "an Executive act, unknown at the time to any but those engaged therein, including General Scott, the Secretary of State, and the President." - General Montgomery Meigs
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OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 1, vol 1, Part 1, page 368
U. S. TRANSPORT ATLANTIC,
[New York,] April 6, 1861-2 1/2 p. m.
Honorable WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State:
DEAR SIR:
By great exertions, within less than six days from the time the subject was broached in the office of the President, a war steamer sails from this port; and the Atlantic, built under contract to be at the service of the United States in case of war, will follow this afternoon with 500 troops, of which one company is sappers and miners, one a mounted battery. The Illinois will follow on Monday with the stores which the Atlantic could not hold.
While the mere throwing of a few men into Fort Pickens may seem a small operation, the opening of a campaign is a great one.
Unless this moment is supported by ample supplies and followed up by the Navy it will be a failure. This is the beginning of the war which every statesman and soldier has foreseen since the passage of the South Carolina ordinance of secession. You will find the Army and the navy clogged at the head with men, excellent patriotic men, men who were soldiers and sailors forty years ago, but who now merely keep active men out of the places in which they could serve the country.
If you call out volunteers you have no general to command. The general born, not made, is yet to be found who is to govern the great army which is to save the country, if saved it can be. Colonel Keyes has shown intelligence, zeal, activity, and I look for a high future for him.
England took six months to get a soldier to the Crimea. We were from May to September in getting General Taylor before Monterey. Let us be supported; we got to serve our country, and our country should not neglect us or leave us to be strangled in tape, however red.
Respectfully,
M. C. MEIGS.
U. S. TROOP-SHIP ATLANTIC,
Lat. 32^13', Long. 74^49'15'', April 10, 1861.
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OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 1, vol 1, Part 1, page 441
Washington, D. C., February 27, 1865.
Bvt. Brigadier General E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General, War Department:
MY DEAR GENERAL:
The Navy Department has no copy of the instructions to D. D. Porter and other naval officers under which they co-operated with the expedition of April, 1861, to re-enforce Fort Pickens.
The President has none, and they have applied to me. My copies, I think, I placed in Hartsuff's hands. He was adjutant of the expedition.
Please forward the inclosed note to him, and if you have copies let me have for the Navy Department a copy of the President's order to Porter and to other naval officers. Also of the order to Colonel Brown, which required all naval officers to aid him.
General Scott knew of the expedition and its orders; and you were acting confidentially with him and may have had custody of those orders, which were kept secret even from the Secretaries of War and Navy, I believe.
Yours, truly,
M. C. MEIGS,
Quartermaster-General, Brevet Major-General.
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OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 1, vol 1, Part 1, page 368
APRIL 3, 1861.
Honorable WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State:
DEAR SIR: We except to touch at Key West, and will be able to set things in order there and give the first check to the secession movement by firmly establishing the authority of the United States in that most ungrateful island and city. Thence we propose to send dispatches under cover to you. The officers will write to their friends, understanding that the package will not be broken until after the public has notice through the newspapers of our success or defeat. Our object is yet unknown on board, and if I read the papers of the eve of our departure aright our secret is still a secret in New York. No communication with the shore, however, will be allowed.
* * *
The dispatch and the secrecy with which this expedition has been fitted out will strike terror into the ranks of rebellion. All New York saw, all the United States knew, that the Atlantic was filling with stores and troops. But now this nameless vessel, her name is painted out, speeds out of the track of commerce to an unknown destination. Mysterious, unseen, where will the powerful bolt fall?
* * *
I am, most respectfully, your obedient servant,
M. C. MEIG,
Captain of Engineers.