In the meantime the Federal authorities continued to practice the base policy of deception with the Confederate commissioners. Upon one occasion Mr. Seward declared that Fort Sumter would be evacuated before a letter, then ready to be mailed, could reach President Davis at Montgomery. Five days afterward, General Beauregard, commanding the Confederate forces in Charleston harbor, telegraphed the commissioners at Washington the ominous intelligence that the Federal commandant was actively strengthening Fort Sumter. The commissioners were again soothed with Mr. Seward's renewed assurances of the positive intention of his government to evacuate the fort. As late as the 7th of April Mr. Seward gave the emphatic assurance: "Faith as to Sumter fully kept: wait and see." _This was the date of the sailing of the Federal fleet with a strong military force on board._[23] The just characterization, by President Davis, of these deceptions, was, that "the crooked paths of diplomacy can scarcely furnish an example so wanting in courtesy, in candor, and directness, as was the course of the United States Government toward our commissioners in Washington."[24] The expedition was some hours on its way,[25] when its purpose to provision the fort was announced to the Governor of South Carolina by an agent of the United States. This announcement was telegraphed to Montgomery by General Beauregard, who also asked for instructions. His government replied, that if the message was authentic, a demand should be made for the surrender of the fort to the Confederate forces; and in the event of refusal, its reduction should be undertaken. On the 11th of April the demand was made and refused.[26] In obedience to the orders of his government General Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumter early on the morning of the 12th April. On the 13th the fort surrendered. The calculations of Mr. Lincoln and his cabinet, as to the result to be produced by the attack on Fort Sumter, provoked by their deliberate and dishonest design, were not disappointed. A furious and instantaneous rush to arms by the North followed the intelligence of the surrender of the fort, and revealed the ferocious lust with which it had awaited the signal to begin the crusade against the liberties and property of the South. As no possible trait of guilt had been wanting in the means employed to precipitate hostilities, so no conceivable feature of atrocity was to be wanting in the conduct of a war by the North, produced by its own avarice, perfidy, and lust of dominion.