rs from Indians
on the great western frontier, and guarding the long Canadian and
Mexican boundaries as well. Yet Anderson and his men could not be left
to their fate without even an attempt to help them, though some of the
high military and naval officers hastily called into council by the
new President advised this course. It was finally decided to notify the
Confederates that a ship carrying food, but no soldiers, would be sent
to his relief. If they chose to fire upon that it would be plainly the
South, and not the North, that began the war.

Days went on, and by the middle of April the Confederate government
found itself forced to a fatal choice. Either it must begin war, or
allow the rebellion to collapse. All its claims to independence were
denied; the commissioner it sent to Washington on the pretense that they
were agents of a foreign country were politely refused a hearing, yet
not one angry word, or provoking threat, or a single harmful act had
come from the "Black Republican" President. In his inaugural he had
promised the people of the South peace and protection, and offered them
the benefit of the mails. Even now, all he proposed to do was to send
bread to Anderson and his hungry soldiers. His prudent policy placed
them where, as he had told them, they could have no war unless they
themselves chose to begin it.

They did choose to begin it. The rebellion was the work of ambitious
men, who had no mind to stop at that late day and see their labor go for
nothing. The officer in charge of their batteries was ordered to open
fire on Fort Sumter if Anderson refused to surrender; and in the dim
light of dawn on April 12, 1861, just as the outline of Fort Sumter
began to show itself against a brightening sky, the shot that opened the
Civil War rose from a rebel battery and made its slow and graceful curve
upon Sumter. Soon all the batteries were in action, and the fort was
replying with a will. Anderson held out for a day and a half, until his
cartridges were all used up, his flagstaff had been shot away, and the
wooden buildings inside the fort were on fire. Then, as the ships with
supplies had not yet arrived, and he had neither food nor ammunition, he
was forced to surrender.

The news of the firing upon Fort Sumter changed the mood of the country
as if by magic. By deliberate act of the Confederate government its
attempt at peaceable secession had been changed to active war. The
Confederates gained Fort Sum