Lincoln: No peace negotiations, likes Fox's plan

G.V. Fox

• In Washington, President Lincoln orders his Secretary of State William Seward to refuse any and all meetings with Confederate diplomats on any grounds. In avoiding even a secret or informal conference, Lincoln hopes to avoid the Constitutional question of whether the seceded States had actually exercised their Tenth Amendment rights to leave the Union. Further, he has no interest in diplomacy when he is adamantly pursuing a military solution to the crisis./1861

•  In response to a telegram from his brother-in-law, Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, Gustavus Vasa Fox arrives in Washington and meets with Lincoln today. He presents Lincoln with a plan that the Buchanan Administration had rejected during its last weeks in office despite US Naval authorities' opinion that Fox's plan is militarily feasible. Fox's plan, which will later earn him a Lincoln appointment as Chief Clerk, then Assistant Secretary of the US Navy, calls for a combination of warships, transports, and tugboats to run reinforcements and supplies into the fort. He proposes to put about three hundred troops aboard a large steamer, which would be convoyed by warships. Along with Fort Sumter's guns, these warships would, if necessary, subdue Confederate resistance. The troops would be run into the fort at night, using either the tugboats or small boats brought along for that purpose. Lincoln decides to convene his Cabinet to consider the plan./1861