I'm sure there's an exception for law enforcement authorities. Tongue in cheek, I'd say that Jack Bauer does it all the time. Do you really think Confederate authorities never commandeered any vehicles?
It sounds like you would have started a war come what may.
No, but the federal authorities had a right to hold the line, to maintain the forts that were their property until things were sorted out. Negotiations of some sort could have been undertaken, but no state had the authority to seize or demand federal property without due process.
Agreed. Why don't we cease and desist? We've beat this subject to death.
Okay by me.
I'm sure there's an exception for law enforcement authorities.
Whose law were they enforcing? Certainly not local law, because South Carolina had two steamers patroling the harbor since the night of the 20th to ensure that no one moved to Sumter except authorized workers. (Klein, paperback version, pg 153).
I imagine the ship captain who had been contracted to take women and children over to Fort Johnson was quite aware of the patrling steamers and their purpose and did not want to put his ship in danger by taking it to Sumter.
I did find mention of the charter. It was as I suspected. From Klein, pg 154: "He [Anderson] had sent Lieutenant Norman C. Hall to charter three schooners and some barges ostensibly to move the women and children in Moultrie across the harbor to Fort Johnson."
Then I found this in reference to Governor Pickens and the truce with Buchanan. Klein, pg 163: "Rhett senior and three legislators had visited Pickens soon after his arrival in Charleston to urge that all measures be taken to keep federal soldiers out of Sumter. Rhett had also tried to get the convention to approve siezure of the forts. But Pickens was adamant; he would not move so long as the "understanding" remained in place and until the commissioners [rb note: South Carolina's commissioners to Washington] had had a chance to fulfill their mission."
Your "law enforcers" didn't want to be seen by the patrol boats. In one instance they removed their caps and coats and hid their arms and insignia to fool a patrol boat into thinking that they were a regular Sumter workparty. If was dusk or after dark.
Sounds like Jack Bauer all right. Where was Chloe when the South Carolinians needed her?