That morning when Lincoln arrived at his office, as his friend Orville Browning would later recall, “the very first thing placed in his hands” was a letter from Major Anderson at Fort Sumter, accompanied by a note from outgoing war secretary Joseph Holt. This was Anderson’s report summarizing the estimates made by his officers as to the number of troops and the quantity of supplies that would be necessary to sustain the fort against Confederate attack.
On Lincoln’s first full day as President, March 5 1861.
