[238] beginning, it is positively certain that long before the end, and while still reiterating his assurances that the garrison would be withdrawn, he knew that it had been determined, and that active preparations were in progress, to strengthen it. Gideon Welles, who was Secretary of the Navy in Lincoln's cabinet, gives the following account of one of the transactions of the period:
One evening in the latter part of the month of March, there was a small gathering at the Executive Mansion, while the Sumter question was still pending. The members of the Cabinet were soon individually and quietly invited to the council-chamber, where, as soon as assembled, the President informed them he had just been advised by General Scott that it was expedient to evacuate Fort Pickens, as well as Fort Sumter, which last was assumed at military headquarters to be a determined fact, in conformity with the views of Secretary Seward and the General-in-Chief. . . . A brief silence followed the announcement of the amazing recommendation of General Scott, when Mr. Blair, who had been much annoyed by the vacillating course of the General-in-Chief in regard to Sumter, remarked, looking earnestly at Mr. Seward, that it was evident the old General was playing politician in regard to both Sumter and Pickens; for it was not possible, if there was a defense, for the rebels to take Pickens; and the Administration would not be justified if it listened to his advice and evacuated either. Very soon thereafter, I think at the next Cabinet meeting, the President announced his decision that supplies should be sent to Sumter, and issued confidential orders to that effect. All were gratified with this decision, except Mr. Seward, who still remonstrated, but preparations were immediately commenced to fit out an expedition to forward supplies.1This account is confirmed by a letter of Montgomery Blair.2 The date of the announcement of the President's final purpose is fixed by Welles, in the next paragraph to that above quoted, as March 28. This was four days before Seward's assurance given Judge Campbell—after conference with the President—that there would be no departure from the pledges previously given (which were that the fort would be evacuated), and ten days before his written renewal of the assurance—“Faith as to Sumter fully kept. Wait and see!” This assurance, too, was given at the very moment when a messenger from his own department was on the way to Charleston to notify the governor of South Carolina that faith would not be kept in the matter. It is scarcely necessary to say that the commissioners had, with good reason, ceased to place any confidence in the promises of the United States government, before they ceased to be made. On April 8th they sent the following dispatch to General Beauregard:
