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LINCOLN, Abraham. Autograph letter signed ("A.Lincoln") as President TO "HONORABLE SECRETARY OF WAR" [SIMON CAMERON], Executive Mansion [Washington, D.C.], 29 March 1861. 1 page, large folio (13 x 7 7/8 in.), irregular stain in blank upper left-hand corner, very minor repairs at two folds, otherwise in fine condition. Docketed on verso "Order of the President for the preparation of an Expedition by sea." THE LETTER THAT MADE THE FIRST SHOTS OF THE CIVIL WAR INEVITABLE: LINCOLN ISSUES ORDERS FOR THE RELIEF OF FORTS SUMTER AND PICKENS A momentous letter, constituting Lincoln's critical act in the Fort Sumter crisis, an action which represents a key turning point in his early presidency and the secession crisis, a decision which "was to make him the second president to be charged with contriving a war and shifting the guilt to the other side" (R.N. Current, Lincoln and the First Shot , 1963, p.11). The President, who had been in office only a few weeks, writes in a large, bold hand (similar to that he sometimes used for speeches to be read) and issues momentous orders to the Secretaries of War and Navy regarding long-delayed plans to send a relief force to the encircled Forts Sumter and Pickens. Lincoln writes: "Honorable Secretary of War: Sir -- I desire that an expedition, to move by sea, be got ready to sail as early as the 6th of April next, the whole according to memorandum attached, and that you co-operate with the Secretary of the Navy for that object. Your obedient Servant A. Lincoln." Even before Lincoln was sworn in as President, the secession of South Carolina and other states of the deep South placed Federal facilities within those states in jeopardy; one by one, arsenals, customshouses and forts were seized by the Confederacy--usually without any overt resistance--so that by the time of Lincoln's inauguration, only two key forts, Pickens in Pensacola Bay and Fort Sumter in the center of Charleston harbor, remained in Union hands. Sumter in particular took on immense symbolic importance as "a commanding symbol of national sovereignty in the very cradle of secession, a symbol that the Confederate government could not tolerate if it wished its own sovereignty to be recognized by the world" (McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom , p. 263). Robert Anderson Union commander of Fort Moultrie in Charleston, abandoned that vulnerable post on December 26 and retreated with his garrison to the protective walls of Sumter. The Confederate authorities proceeded to ring the harbor with batteries of artillery and cut off the Fort's usual supply channels (although mail, curiously, was readily passed under flag of truce). Anderson, with his supplies dwindling, grew increasingly anxious. An unarmed supply vessel, the Star of the West , had been sent to the beleaguered fort by the reluctant General Winfield Scott, but was effectively turned back by Confederate artillery on January 9. In his inaugural address, Lincoln made an eloquent plea to the South, urging moderation and pledging not to interfere with the southern states' right to hold slaves, but he warned that "the power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government," and cautioned that "in your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine is the momentous issue of civil war...You can have no conflict without being yourselves the agressors..." Late that night Lincoln left the Inaugural Ball and returned to the White House where a letter of disturbing import was delivered to him in the oval office. He later told his secretary Nicolay that "The first thing that was handed me after I entered this room, when I came from the inauguration was the letter from Maj. Anderson saying that their provisions would be exhausted before an expedition could be sent to their relief" (quoted in E.S. Meirs, Lincoln Day by Day , 3:26). "Anderson's unexpected notice, requiring either the evacuation of Sumter or the active provisio