immediately so garrisoned as to make any
attempt to take any one of them, by surprise or _coup de main_,
ridiculous." There were five companies of regulars within reach,
available for this service. This plan was provisional only; it
eschewed the idea of invading a seceded State; and he suggested the
collection of customs duties, outside of the cities.

[Sidenote] "Mr. Buchanan's Administration," p. 104.

[Sidenote] Buchanan, in the "National Intelligencer," Oct. 1, 1862.

Eight to ten States on the verge of insurrection--nine principal
sea-coast forts within their borders, absolutely at the mercy of the
first handful of street rabble that might collect, and only about four
hundred men, scattered in five different and distant cities, available
to reenforce them! It was a startling exhibit of national danger from
one professionally competent to judge and officially entitled to
advise. His timely and patriotic counsel President Buchanan treated
with indifference and neglect. "From the impracticable nature of the
'Views,' and their strange and inconsistent character, the President
dismissed them from his mind without further consideration." Such is
Mr. Buchanan's own confession. He indulges in the excuse that to have
then attempted to put these five companies in all or part of these
nine forts "would have been a confession of weakness instead of an
exhibition of imposing and overpowering strength." "None of the Cotton
States had made the first movement towards secession. Even South
Carolina was then performing all her relative duties, though most
reluctantly, to the Government," etc. "To have attempted such a
military operation with so feeble a force, and the Presidential
election impending, would have been an invitation to collision and
secession. Indeed, if the whole American army, consisting then of only
sixteen thousand men, had been 'within reach' they would have been
scarcely sufficient for this purpose."

The error of this reasoning was well shown by General Scott in a
newspaper controversy which subsequently ensued.[3] He pointed out
that of the nine forts enumerated by him, six, namely, Forts Moultrie
and Sumter in Charleston harbor, Forts Pickens and McRae in Pensacola
harbor, and Forts Jackson and St. Philip guarding the Mississippi
below New Orleans, were "twin forts" on opposite sides of a channel,
whose strength was more than doubled by their very position and their
ability to employ cross and flankin