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

by Erik Larson

On Friday, March 1, the Confederate States of America officially took control of military operations in Charleston. Confederate President Jefferson Davis placed engineer Beauregard in command and promoted him to brigadier general. Beauregard left for Charleston immediately. That day as well, Confederate Secretary of War Leroy P. Walker wrote to Governor Pickens to assure him that President Davis shared his view “that Fort Sumter should be in our possession at the earliest moment possible.” But he added a caveat. “Thorough preparation must be made before an attack is attempted, for the first blow must be successful, both for its moral and physical consequences, or otherwise the result might be disastrous to your State in the loss of many of those whom we can least afford to lose. A failure would demoralize our people and injuriously affect us in the opinion of the world as reckless and precipitate.” In short, the Confederacy planned not only to move against Sumter, but to do so with overwhelming force to avoid the humiliation of failure.