Here is one of the coolest, what we like to call a “Spy Report” regarding Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor. 

According to the book, The Civil War at Charleston by Arthur Wilcox:

“FEW SECRETS OF THE CIVIL WAR WERE BETTER KEPT THAN

MAJ. ROBERT ANDERSON’S MOVE TO FORT SUMTER.”

“Even his own Officers, with two or three exceptions, knew nothing about it until half an hour or so before the move.”  The book by Wilcox goes on to give a fascinating story of how Anderson and his battery commander Captain Abner Doubleday made the move. 

Our document is a report sent to South Carolina F. W. Pickens on December 20th, 1860.  Anderson moved his 75 men out of Fort Moultrie just six days later!  The letter is one page on blue-grey paper and is in fine condition, written in nice dark ink.  It was written by Major Walter Gwynn, one of Governor Pickens Aides, who was sent to Charleston to “spy” or check out the two Union forts. 

According to the book, Allegiance, Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War by David Detzer, on page 101, he states that Gwynn’s observations “caused a ripple of anxiety in Charleston.”  Just three days after Gwynn’s report, Edmund Ruffin and members of the legislature took a military tour of the harbor.  Ruffin wrote in his diary that if a sizeable garrison was placed inside Fort Sumter “it would be extremely difficult to be taken.”

So here is the report sent to Governor Pickens:

                                                                                                                                                 “Steamer Seabrook
                                                                                                                                                           20 Decr. 1860

His Excellency

       F. W. Pickens

                                Sir

                                    I deem it proper to inform you that the embrasures (opening
in a casemate that permitted artillery to fire through it) of the lower tier of guns
 at Fort Sumter are closed up with plank – and that the embrasures of the upper
tier are bricked up with loose brick.  These are precautions taken in the face of
the enemy.  In some cases to mask the Battery – in other cases to prevent an
assault through the embrasures.

              I observed also that there are two tiers of barrels, filled, as a matter of
course, with sand, placed on the parapet of Fort Moultrie, on the land or upper
 side of the Fort.  The only vulnerable point of the fort – These barrels are
designed to protect the gun carriages; as also the men working the guns.

                                                I have the honor to be

                                                 Your Excellency’s

                                                Most Obedt. Servt.

                                                Walter Gwynn”

A very historic piece for the Charleston/Fort Sumter collector! 

#HC103 - Price $1,695