U.S. Navy fleet composed of the steamships Pocahontas, Pawnee, Harriet Lane, and the warship Powhatan heads for Fort Sumter in Charleston to support the Marines besieged there by the Confederates. In Montgomery, the Confederate generals work feverishly to issue orders: the tremendous responsibility they bear is clear. They decide to take strong action. Only the Secretary of State understands the extent of the error: “You will needlessly awaken a hornet’s nest stretching from the mountains to the ocean, and the legions, now inert, will awaken to strike us dead. It is futile and puts us in the wrong. It is fatal.”
