The building of batteries around Fort Sumter had been begun, under the orders of Governor Pickens, about the first of January, and continued with industry and energy; and about the first of March General Beauregard, an accomplished engineer officer, was sent by the Confederate government to take charge of and complete the works.  On April 1 he telegraphed to Montgomery:  “Batteries ready to open Wednesday or Thursday.  What instructions?”

At this point, the Confederate authorities at Montgomery found themselves face to face with the fatal alternative either to begin war or to allow their rebellion to collapse.  Their claim to independence was denied, their commissioners were refused a hearing; yet not an angry word, provoking threat, nor harmful act had come from President Lincoln.  He had promised them peace, protection, freedom from irritation; had offered them the benefit of the mails.  Even now, all he proposed to do was—­not to send guns or ammunition or men to Sumter, but only bread and provisions to Anderson and his soldiers.  His prudent policy placed them in the exact attitude described a month earlier in his inaugural; they could have no conflict without being themselves the aggressors.  But the rebellion was organized by ambitious men with desperate intentions.  A member of the Alabama legislature, present at Montgomery, said to Jefferson Davis and three members of his cabinet:  “Gentlemen, unless you sprinkle blood in the face of the people of Alabama, they will be back in the old Union in less than ten days.”  And the sanguinary advice was adopted.  In answer to his question, “What instructions?” Beauregard on April 10 was ordered to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter, and, in case of refusal, to reduce it.

The demand was presented to Anderson, who replied that he would evacuate the fort by noon of April 15, unless assailed, or unless he received supplies or controlling instructions from his government.  This answer being unsatisfactory to Beauregard, he sent Anderson notice that he would open fire on Sumter at 4:20 on the morning of April 12.

Promptly at the hour indicated the bombardment was begun.  As has been related, the rebel siege-works were built on the points of the islands forming the harbor, at distances varying from thirteen hundred to twenty-five hundred yards, and numbered nineteen batteries, with an armament of forty-seven guns, supported by a land force of from four to six thousand volunteers.  The disproportion between means of attack and defense was enormous.  Sumter, though a work three hundred by three hundred and fifty feet in size, with well-constructed walls and casemates of brick, was in very meager preparation for such a conflict.  Of its forty-eight available guns, only twenty-one were in the casemates, twenty-seven being on the rampart en barbette.  The garrison consisted of nine commissioned officers, sixty-eight non-commissioned officers and privates, eight musicians, and forty-three non-combatant workmen compelled by the besiegers to remain to hasten the consumption of provisions.