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had informed a German diplomat “that there was no great difference between an elected president of the United States and an hereditary monarch.” Neither truly ran things. “The actual direction of public affairs belongs to the leader of the ruling party.” Seward had conceived of himself as a prime minister, with Lincoln the figurehead. Testing this presumptuous notion, Seward closed with the idea that “whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it…. Either the President must do it himself…or DEVOLVE it on some member of his Cabinet…. It is not in my especial province. But I neither seek to evade nor assume responsibility.” As Nicolay later wrote, “had Mr. Lincoln been an envious or a resentful man, he could not have wished for a better occasion to put a rival under his feet.” Seward’s effrontery easily could have provoked a swift dismissal. Yet, as happened so often, Lincoln showed an “unselfish magnanimity,” which was “the central marvel of the whole affair.”

The president immediately dashed off a reply to Seward that he would never send, probably preferring to respond in person. Buried in Lincoln’s papers, the document was not unearthed until decades later, as Nicolay and Hay labored on their massive Lincoln biography. Lincoln’s response was short but pointed. Concerning the assertion that the administration was “without a policy,” Lincoln reminded Seward of his inaugural pledge that “the power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government.” This was the “exact domestic policy” that Seward called for, “with the single exception, that it does not propose to abandon Fort Sumpter.” As for the charge that the administration lacked a foreign policy, “we have been preparing circulars, and instructions to ministers…without even a suggestion that we had no foreign policy.” The idea of engineering a foreign war to reunify the country did not even rate a response.

Lincoln responded most emphatically to Seward’s suggestion that perhaps the secretary of state was needed to design and pursue a vigorous policy where the president had not. In unmistakable language, Lincoln wrote: “I remark that if this must be done, I must do it.”

Undaunted, Seward worked furiously to complete his plans for reinforcing Fort Pickens, hopeful that Lincoln might change his mind before the Fox expedition to Fort Sumter was launched. The previous day, he had sent an urgent summons to Captain Montgomery Meigs to come to his house. Recognizing that time was short, Seward requested Meigs “to put down upon paper an estimate & project for relieving & holding Fort Pickens” and “to bring it to the Presidents before 4 p.m.” Lincoln was happy to receive the army captain’s report, though in his mind, reinforcing Pickens did not mean choosing between the two garrisons. “Tell [Scott],” the president said, “that I wish this thing done & not to let it fail unless he can show that I have refused him something he asked for as necessary. I depend upon you gentlemen to push this thing through.”

Lincoln was cautioned by Seward that the army’s expedition to Pickens should be kept from naval authorities, given the number of navy men who were openly disloyal to the Union. Lincoln signed orders on April 1 to Andrew Foote, the commandant of the Navy Yard in Brooklyn, to “fit out the Powhatan without delay” for a secret mission to Pensacola under the command of Lieutenant David Porter. The Powhatan was the U.S. Navy’s most powerful warship. “Under no circumstances” should “the fact that she is fitting out” be disclosed to the Navy Department, Lincoln emphasized. Both Navy Secretary Welles and Captain Fox, whose plans for the relief of Sumter depended on the Powhatan, remained unaware of the secret orders. With its mighty guns and three hundred sailors, the Powhatan was supposed to play an essential role in backing up the tugboats carrying supplies to Sumter.

Lincoln had failed to peruse the orders carefully and inadvertently assigned the Powhatan simultaneously to both Pickens and Sumter.