[rustbucket]

Thanks, mac. The information did indeed come from the trip I made to Fort Sumter in October. It came from a book I bought at the park store entitled, The Seige of Charleston, 1861-1865 by E. Milby Burton (1970).

From the back cover of the book: "The author, the director of the Charleston Museum and a retired naval officer, has brought together, mainly from original sources, more information on the seige than is to be found elsewhere." (American Historical Review)

Concerning the move to Sumter, the book says in part, "He [Anderson] instructed Hall to delay unloading his personnel and cargo under the pretext of finding suitable quarters at Fort Johnson. ... When the last man from Moultrie was on Sumter, the two guns were fired, signaling recall of the schooners waiting at Fort Johnson with the women, children and supplies aboard. The captain of one of the schooners, realizing that he had been duped, put up a fight and had to be overcome with force."

I discovered at the Fort that mac_truck knew more about the situation inside the Fort at the time of Doubleday's arrival (i.e., how many laborers were present) than the two park rangers on duty did. I got different numbers from the two rangers, and it was clear they were making educated guesses. Mac, on the other hand, had provided some documentation to support his case. Hats off to mac on that one.

As lentulusgracchus once observed, these threads are like a graduate seminar on the war.

[Non-Sequitur]

We can take this to absurd levels and go back a few days to southern mobs marching through the streets of Charleston and James Petigru's warning to Major Anderson that plans were afoot to seize the forts. But there is a difference in the actions. Major Anderson may have appropriated the boat to move his men to Sumter. He may have locked the captain below. But in the end the captain was released and the boat returned to him unharmed. The same can't be said for the property seized by the southern forces.