The jockeying over Fort Sumter continues. Guarding the entrance to Charleston Harbor, the Fort is critical to the South. Rumors swirl that Union forces will abandon the Fort, but the momentary excitement soon subsides as the news proves baseless. The real question is when and how U. S. President Abraham Lincoln will attempt to send new provisions to Sumter. Confederate forces stand ready to prevent any resupply effort.
Otherwise, Virginia and Missouri make news today. From the New York Herald:
These States are willing, notwithstanding the failure of the Washington Peace Congress, to make another effort to prevent a complete separation of the free and slave States, and with this view Virginia proposes the holding of a conference of the border slave States at Frankfort, Ky. on the 27th of May, while Missouri proposes a similar conference at Nashville, Tenn., on the 15th of April.
Few believe the proposed conferences will do any good. Meanwhile, Lincoln is busy wooing the border states in an effort to prevent the Confederate States of America from gaining further momentum.
Also today, Georgia’s Governor Joseph Brown (a Baptist and member of Milledgeville Baptist Church; illustration) responds affirmatively to a request from L. P. Walker, Secretary of War of the Confederate States of America, to raise “provisional forces for the Confederate States.” Brown agrees to furnish “two regiments of 1,000 each as soon as they can possibly be organized.”
Thus are the beginnings of the First Georgia Voluntary Infantry, which will be comprised of Baptists and many other persons of religious persuasion, as well as persons with no religious affiliation.
Source: Letters between Walker and Brown (link)
