1860, secede from the Union, I am credibly informed a portion of the South Carolina delegation in Congress called on the President of the United States and held an interview witrh him for the purpose of brigging about an understanding that no change should be made in the military status of the forts at Charleston (Major Anderston with probably 70 to 100 men then being in Fort Moultrie,) and in consideration that the status should not be changed and that no re-enforcements of Federal troops should be sent to Charleston, they proposed on their part that the authorities of South Carolina would make no assualt upon Major Anderson and his force, then in Fort Moultrie, till the necessary steps could be taken to settle all pending question between the State and the Federal Government by negotiation. It was generaly undestood by the country that such an agreement as the one above mentioned had been entered into between the President and the Carolina authorities, and that Governor Floyd, of Virginia, then Secretary of War, had expressed his determinatio to resign his position in the Cabinet in case of refusal by the President to carry out the agreement in good faith. The resignation of Governor Floyd was therefore naturally looked to, should it occur, as a signal given to the South that re-enforcements were to be sent to Charleston and that the coercive policy had been adopted by the Federatl Government. Just at this period in began to be suspected that the President was becoming unsettled in his determination to preserve the peace, and thea coercion might be attempted to compel South Carolina to submit to the laws of the Union. The cnvass in Georgia for members to the State convention was progressing with much interest on both sides, when to the astonishment of all, it was announced that Major Anderson had spiked the guns and burned the gun carriages in Fort Moultrie and had taken possession of Fort Sumter in the night without the knowledge of the South Carolina authorities.

After South Carolina had seceded she sent commissioners to Washington to treat with the President for the delivery of the forts and for the general adjustment of pending difficulties. The correspondence between them ant the President, as the publications show, had been very unsatisfactory to South Carolina, resulting in a refusal of the President to give up the forts, or to give any guarantee that they would not be re-enforced. The commissioners telegraphed the result of their mission to their convention, still in session at Charleston, and the convention communicated it to me. At this juncture in these complicated affairs, Governor Floyd resigned his position in the Cabinet for the reason, as it was understood, that the President refused to carry out in good faith the pledges made to the Carolina Congressmen, and that it was then the determination of the Government to re-enforce the forts at Charleston and in other Southern States. Soon after his resignation the telegraph brought the information that Mr. Holt, Postomaster-General, who was undestood to have advocated the coercive policy in the Cabinet, had been apointed Acting Secretary of War. They day I learned these facts I received at telegram from Colonel Lawton, of Savannah, earnestly requesting me to come to Savannah at once. On the morning of January 1, 1861, I left Milledgeville for Savannah, accompanied by Adjutant-General Wayne. We arrived there at 9 p. m., and at once entered into consultation with the leading military men of the place, and with Colonel Hardee, then of the U. S. Army, who was known to be the friend of Georgia, and who, it was understood, would resign as soon as she seceded. I was informed that there was great popular apprehensi that Fort Pulaski would be garrisoned with United States