That night Lincoln did not close his eyes. The next day, against the advice of five of his Cabinet, including Mr. Seward, all of whom advised the abandonment of Fort Sumter, he ordered the preparation of a naval expedition to relieve Major Anderson. Additional troops and supplies were ordered into the beleaguered Fort Pickens in Florida. The Confederate commissioners might seek conferences with Secretary Seward in vain. The expedition to rescue Sumter sailed with orders to deliver food to the garrison and, if opposed, to force its way in. Lincoln’s hand had signed the order that precipitated the Civil War. Although the President had notified Governor Pickens, of South Carolina, that the relief expedition simply contemplated the peaceful delivery of provisions to a garrison threatened by starvation, the Confederates immediately demanded the surrender of Sumter, with a pledge from Major Anderson that he should make no preparations to injure the fort after withdrawing. This demand was refused by Anderson, who added, “if I can only be permitted to leave on the pledge you mention, I shall never, so help me God, leave this fort alive.” Again and again Anderson was called upon to surrender Sumter. The Confederates were determined to have the place before Lincoln’s supplies arrived. Each time the brave Union officer replied that he would maintain his country’s flag where it flew. Then came the crash which shook the continent and thrilled the civilized world. At daybreak on April 12, 1861, in the presence of a great multitude of civilian spectators in Charleston harbor, the rebel batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter and the Union. For two days the fort withstood the terrific bombardment, and then, with all food gone, his quarters set on fire by red hot cannon balls, and his ammunition almost exhausted, Major Anderson lowered the stars and stripes to native-born Americans and hoisted the white flag. That was on Saturday. On Sunday Lincoln wrote a proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand volunteers to defend the Union. The same night Douglas called at the White House--Douglas, the Democratic, thundering Douglas, the champion of slavery; Douglas, the antagonist of Lincoln in almost every crisis of his career; Douglas, who in the Senate only a few weeks ago had cried, “War is disunion. War is final, eternal separation”--and Lincoln clasped hands with the brilliant rival from whom he had won his wife and the Presidency, now come to pledge his life to the defence of the Union. On Monday morning Lincoln’s proclamation and Douglas’s noble and magnanimous declaration that he would support Lincoln in saving the nation were read by the American people.