Heres a thought ... Should Anderson have opened fire on the S. Carolina troops as they took over Moultrie and the other forts once he occupied Sumter...
Very few guns had been mounted at that point, and he had a large group of workers of unknown loyalty at Ft. Sumter. For practical reasons, probably too early.
Might have been a good point to start acting tough, though, if he knew what the government wanted him to do.
Did he have a duty to protect federal possessions within the harbor?
Absolutely. He was a serving military officer who was sure of his path on that issue.
Strangely, I think Robert E. Lee might have done much as Anderson did. When the Texans acted aggressively against Twiggs, the officers at San Antonio discussed it among themselves. Many thought that if Lee had still been in command, they would have cut their way through and been riding North instead of meekly surrendering.
If Twiggs had been in command at Charleston, though, I think he would have simply surrendered all three posts and the Arsenal the second the South Carolinians asked. I really don't think much of Twiggs.
Should he have considered these moves acts of war and responded...He wouldn't have been in any worst position then he was 4 months later and might have been able to been resupplied..
Possible. He'd need to know the government's intentions, though, and I am not sure anyone knew what Buchanan might do (even Buchanan).
If Winfield Scott and a strong Secretary of War had been working with Buchanan and Anderson for this event, it might have been really different.. In that case, you might have seen a relief steaming out of New York earlier and already well organized. But Scott kept Army HQ in New York and didn't get along well with the Washington politicians (or a lot of other people). Floyd was in the midst of a major financial scandal, already asked to resign by Buchanan before Anderson moved to Ft. Sumter. None of those people was doing the kind of things needed to assure Anderson of support.
If there'd been an Andrew Jackson in the White House, Charleston might have awoken one day in mid-December to find a USN warship and a transport in the harbor, with supplies and two or three hundred extra troops to throw into Castle Pinckney, Ft. Moultrie and Ft. Sumter, along with clear instructions for Colonel Anderson. Now
that would have made for an interesting vote on secession, wouldn't it?
Tim