At Fort Sumter, Major Anderson had two companies of the First United States Artillery—about 85 officers and men in a fortification intended for as many as 650. He had only “about 4 months” supply of provisions for his command. The question of reenforcement and supply was to trouble all the remaining days of the Buchanan administration and to carry over to the succeeding administration. In it were the seeds of war. _The Star of the West_ President Buchanan was persuaded to send off a relief expedition almost immediately. Initial plans called for the dispatch of the sloop of war _Brooklyn_ for this purpose, but when word came which indicated that the South Carolinians had obstructed the harbor entrance by sinking several ships, it was decided to use an ordinary merchant ship. The _Brooklyn_, of heavy draft, could probably not now pass into the harbor. A merchant ship would certainly excite less suspicion and would avoid the appearance of a coercive movement. Accordingly, the _Star of the West_—a ship which regularly sailed southward from New York—was chartered. Two hundred men, small arms and ammunition, and several months’ provisions were placed aboard. The men were to remain below deck on entering Charleston Harbor; the _Brooklyn_ would follow, in case the _Star of the West_ were fired upon and disabled. [Illustration: The Star of the West. From Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.] But Charleston was forewarned. When the _Star of the West_ appeared at the entrance of the harbor on January 9, 1861, Citadel cadets opened fire with a gun mounted on Cummings Point; and the merchant ship, unarmed, steamed out of the harbor. Anderson had held his fire, thinking the firing unauthorized by the State authorities. Orders authorizing supporting fire on his part had failed to reach him in time. As if accidentally, civil war had been averted for the moment. There was some Northern reaction to the incident, but further plans for Anderson’s relief, once projected, were delayed. Anderson indicated no immediate need, and President Buchanan was anxious to end his term of office in peace. On January 10, the Secretary of War had ordered Major Anderson to act “strictly on the defensive.” Anderson and Governor Pickens of South Carolina exchanged angry letters, and the Governor’s demand for the fort’s surrender (January 11) was resolved in the “mission” to Washington of the State’s attorney general, I. G. Hayne. When that mission, tempered by the efforts of cooler-headed Southern Senators, met stubborn resistance on the part of President Buchanan, the situation was resolved in the formation of the Southern Confederacy, with the consequent assumption of the Fort Sumter problem by that government. _Preparations for War_