The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

by Erik Larson

Seward had already prepared a formal answer to the commissioners’ demands but did not give it to them. Rather, he wrote it in the form of a for-the-record memorandum to be deposited in the State Department’s archive, accessible to anyone who chose to retrieve it. He did not sign it. He filed it that Friday. This was a curious form of political brinksmanship, very much in line with Seward’s penchant for quiet manipulation, or “line-pulling,” as backroom dealings were known. He could not send this memo directly to the commissioners, because doing so would constitute a form of official recognition. He understood the quandary the commissioners now confronted: If they truly wanted the government’s response, they could retrieve the memorandum from the archive. By this point they knew of its existence. But its contents would shatter any hope they had of receiving formal recognition and, Seward believed, would likely trigger an attack on Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens. If they did not ask for it, the memo would simply reside in the archive, unopened and unread. Seward believed that the longer the commissioners waited, the more likely it was that the Sumter crisis would be resolved peacefully; that absent an incendiary event, the South’s commitment to secession must eventually wane.