The United States government will order the evacua.docVIP

The United States government will order the evacuation of Fort Sumter by next week. That, at least, is the news that is all over Montgomery, where officials are striving to temper the inhabitants’ euphoria, and also all over Charleston, where they are not. “Sumter is to be ours without a fight!” cried a jubilant Charleston Mercury. “To those who have troubled themselves with vague fears of war on a large scale … the relief will be as great as the apprehensions have been grievous.” Library of CongressLouis Wigfall The report came first from Texas Senator Louis Wigfall, who is still clinging to his office despite efforts this week to unseat him (an all but pointless exercise, since he will almost certainly resign next week once Texas officially recognizes the results of a referendum approving secession). Taking time out from drinking sprees with Robert Ward Johnson, who until his resignation on inauguration eve had been a senator from Kentucky (reportedly, after their first bibulous encounter last week, Johnson remembered slapping Wigfall and expressed his regrets, adding that he would understand if Wigfall felt obliged to seek satisfaction on the field of honor; Wigfall, professing no memory of the incident, magnanimously forgave Johnson, and invited him to go for a drink), Wigfall wired both President Davis and General Beauregard, the newly appointed commander of the armed forces in Charleston. His news: Sumter is out of supplies, and Washington will yield the fort in five days, although Beauregard should keep his guard up in case this is a ploy to help rescue the fort.That unlikely possibility seemed to grow even fainter after the same information was reported by John Forsyth, one of the three commissioners who had been sent to Washington by Davis in the unavailing quest to negotiate the purchase of Sumter and other federal properties lying within the new Confederacy. Lincoln has refused to meet the commissioners in any capacity, even privately, but they were abl