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

Mary Chesnut continued her flirtation with John Manning, to the increasing irritation of Mary’s husband James. As March closed, William Seward found himself in a difficult position. He had told the Confederate commissioners that Fort Sumter would soon surrender, but now Lincoln had adopted the opposite plan.

As April began, Seward continued to delay the Confederate commissioners, telling their intermediary that Lincoln was still planning to surrender Fort Sumter, even though he knew that wasn’t the case. Seward still wanted the government to surrender the fort to help smooth things over with the South and get the states to consider re-joining the Union. He sent a self-aggrandizing memorandum to Lincoln outlining his proposal, which Lincoln rejected. Supreme Court Justice Campbell—the intermediary between Seward and the Confederate commissioners—now wrote a letter directly to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, advising him to be patient and wait for Fort Sumter’s surrender. This improper communication between a servant of the US government and a rebel leader was an early sign that Campbell would later become the Confederacy’s Assistant Secretary of War.