Anderson disagreed. The next day, March 22, he reported Fox’s assessment to the War Department and sought to refute his conclusion. “I have examined the point alluded to by Mr. Fox last night,” he wrote. “A vessel lying there will be under the fire of thirteen guns from Fort Moultrie.” He added that Sumter’s chief engineer, Captain Foster, had told him that even at high tide a vessel with a ten-foot draft seeking to land at the optimal point adjacent to the fort would have to anchor forty feet out in the passage.
