

The Confederates demanded immediate evacuation of the fort. Robert Anderson, who had been holed up there since just after Christmas with a tiny garrison of 87 officers and enlisted men-the last precarious symbol of federal power in passionately secessionist South Carolina. Davis led the envoys to the fort’s commander, Maj. Army-no relation to the newly installed president of the Confederacy-met the arriving delegation. Slaves rowed the passengers the nearly three and a half miles across the harbor to the looming hulk of Fort Sumter, where Lt.

The vessel carried three envoys representing the Confederate States government, established in Montgomery, Alabama, two months before. On the afternoon of April 11, 1861, a small open boat flying a white flag pushed off from the tip of the narrow peninsula surrounding the city of Charleston.
