At the outbreak of the war, Horatio Wright was a Captain of Engineers in the United States Corps of Engineers
These dispatches were compiled with primary source materials from The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Chapter 1)
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CONTENTS
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(US Capt) John Foster
- At the outbreak of the war, John Foster was a Captain of Engineers in the United States Corps of Engineers
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From Wright:
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| November 20, 1860 - Captain Horatio Wright to Captain John Foster
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 Click for full-sized scanned image Union Correspondence, etc.
ENGINEER DEPARTMENT,
Washington,
November 20, 1860.
Captain J.G. FOSTER,
Corps of Engineers, Charleston, S.C.:
CAPTAIN: Your letter of the 14th, reporting the temporary defensive arrangements you have had carried out since your arrival at Fort Moultrie on the 11th instant, has been received, and your proceedings are approved.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H.G. WRIGHT,
Captain of Engineers, in charge.
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| November 28, 1860 - Captain Horatio Wright to Captain John Foster
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ENGINEER DEPARTMENT,
Washington,
November 28, 1860.
Captain J.G. FOSTER,
Corps of Engineers, Charleston S.C.:
CAPTAIN: Your letter of the 24th instant has ben received, and in reply I have to say that you are authorized to make the repairs which you report as necessary to Castle Pinckney, and that, as recommended in your letter, you are authorized to organize a working force of an officer, four mechanics, and thirty laborers.
To meet the expenditures at that work, specified in your estimate, the sum of $1,800 will be furnished you from the appropriation for "Contingencies of fortifications."
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H.G. WRIGHT,
Captain of Engineers, in charge.
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| December 6, 1860 - Captain Horatio Wright to Captain John Foster
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Washington, December 6, 1860.
Captain J.G. FOSTER,
Corps of Engineers, Charleston, S.C.:
CAPTAIN: Your letter of the 30th ultimo has been received and laid before the Secretary of War for his information.
An additional officer [Lieutenant Meade] as an assistant at Castle Pinckney has been detailed, as you have been already informed by letter of the 5th instant.
Application has been made for a remittance of $1,800 from the "Contingencies of fortifications," to be applied to the purposes of Castle Pinckney; but in the present low state of the Treasury it may be some time before it can be placed to your credit, though the amount is promised by the Treasury Department with the least practicable delay.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H.G. WRIGHT,
Captain of Engineers, in charge.
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| December 24, 1860 - Captain Horatio Wright to Captain John Foster
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ENGINEER DEPARTMENT,
Washington, December 24, 1860
Captain J.G. FOSTER,
Corps of Engineers, Charleston, S.C.:
SIR: In reply to your letter of the 20th instant* I have to say that on application at the Treasury it is ascertained that no remittance can be made to your credit until after the 28th instant, and that soon after that date all requisitions upon the Treasury will be promptly met as heretofore.
This office will omit no effort to supply you with funds at the earliest possible moment, and as soon as it is ascertained that funds can be supplied you will be promptly informed.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H.G. WRIGHT,
Captain of Engineers, in charge.
* Asking for $10,000 on account of Fort Sumter.
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| December 27, 1860 - Captain Horatio Wright to Captain John Foster
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ENGINEER DEPARTMENT,
Washington, December 27, 1860
Captain J.G. FOSTER,
Corps of Engineers, Charleston, S.C.:
CAPTAIN: I have to acknowledge the receipt of the following letters from you, viz:
1. Letter of December 20, reporting in regard to the receipt of forty muskets, &c., for Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, and their return to the arsenal by direction of the Secretary of War.
2. Letter of December 22, reporting that steamers from Charleston had been engaged for the last two nights in reconnoitering and watching Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, and also detailing the progress of you operations at Fort Moultrie toward putting that work in a defensible condition.
3. Your letter of the 19th December, not before acknowledged, presenting for the consideration of the Government a proposition for preventing the occupation of Fort Sumter by any force not acting under the authority of the United States.
These several letters have been laid before the Secretary of War, and his instructions in relation to the important matters presented therein earnestly requested. Thus far no such instructions have been received, though the Secretary expressed himself fully satisfied with the efforts you have made and the zeal you have exhibited in the trying position in which you are placed.
This Department is highly gratified with the course you have pursued, and fully approves all the steps you have taken for the security of the public interests at the fortifications in Charleston Harbor. At the same time it cannot fail to express the hope that some definite instructions may be soon given for your guidance.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H.G. WRIGHT,
Captain Engineers, in charge.
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(US SoW) John Floyd
- At the outbreak of the war, John Buchanan Floyd was the United States Secretary of War
- He resigned his post on December 29, 1860 and left the northern States to join the Confederate Government
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| December 24, 1860 - Captain Horatio Wright to Secretary John Floyd
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 Click for full-sized scanned image Union Correspondence, etc.
ENGINEER DEPARTMENT, December 24, 1860.
Respectfully submitted to the honorable Secretary of War for his information, and with the earnest request that the instructions solicited by Captain Foster may be promptly given.
H.G. WRIGHT,
Captain of Engineers, in charge.
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(indorsement)
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| December 24, 1860 - Captain Horatio Wright to Secretary John Floyd
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ENGINEER DEPARTMENT, December 24, 1860.
Respectfully submitted to the honorable Secretary of War for his information, and with the earnest request that the instructions solicited by Captain Foster may be promptly given.
H.G. WRIGHT,
Captain of Engineers, in charge.
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(indorsement)
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| December 26, 1860 - Captain Horatio Wright to Secretary John Floyd
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ENGINEER DEPARTMENT, December 26, 1860.
Respectfully referred to the honorable Secretary of War, and his attention urgently called to the within report as one of great importance.
H.G. WRIGHT,
Captain of Engineers, in charge.
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(indorsement)
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MISC.
- Miscellaneous dispatches to or from Horatio Wright
| Description
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Dispatch:
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| Note to Engineering Department after submitting to Secretary of War
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| December 26, 1860 - Captain Horatio Wright to (Engineering Department?)
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ENGINEER OFFICE, December 26, 1860.
Have just seen the Secretary of War, and read to him the within letter. His only remarks in regard to it were that it was very satisfactory, and that he hoped or thought, I don't distinctly remember which, that we should get over these troubles without bloodshed. He further said he did not wish to retain the letter-this in answer to my question.
H.G.W.
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(indorsement)
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| Note after submitting to Lieutenant General Scott
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| December 28, 1860 - Commissioner Robert Barnwell et. al to President James Buchanan
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WASHINGTON, December 28, 1860.
The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:
SIR: We have the honor to transmit to you a copy of the full powers from the Convention of the People of South Carolina, under which we are "authorized and empowered to treat with the Government of the United States for the delivery of the forts, magazines, light houses, and other real estate with their appurtenances, within the limits of South Carolina; and also for an apportionment of the public debt and a division of all other property held by the Government of the United States as agent of the confederated States, of which South Carolina was recently a member; and, generally, to negotiate as to all other measures and arrangements proper to be made and adopted in the existing relations of the parties, and for the continuance of peace and amity between this Commonwealth and the Government at Washington."
In the execution of this trust it is our duty to furnish you, as we now do, with an official copy of the ordinance of secession, by which the State of South Carolina has resumed the powers she delegated to the Government of the United States, and has declared her perfect sovereignty and independence.
It would also have been our duty to have informed you that were ready to negotiate with you upon all such questions as are necessarily raised by the adoption of this ordinance, and that we were prepared to enter upon this negotiation with the earnest desire to avoid all unnecessary and hostile collision, and so to inaugurate our new relations as to secure mutual respect, general advantage, and a future of good will and harmony, beneficial to all the parties concerned. But the events of the last twenty-four hours render such an assurance impossible. We came here, the representatives of an authority which could at any time within the past sixty days have taken possession of the forts in Charleston Harbor, but which, upon pledges given in a manner that we cannot doubt, determined to trust to your honor rather than to its own power. Since our arrival an officer of the United States acting, as we are assured, not only without but against your orders, has dismantled one fort and occupied another, thus altering to a most important extent the condition of affairs under which we came.
Until those circumstances are explained in a manner which relieves us of all doubt as to the spirit in which these negotiations shall be conducted, we are forced to suspend all discussion as to any arrangements by which our mutual interests might be amicably adjusted.
And, in conclusion, we would urge upon you the immediate with drawl of the troops, from the harbor of Charleston. Under present circumstances they are a standing menace which renders negotiation impossible, and, as our recent experience shows, threatens speedily to bring to a bloody issue questions which ought to be settled with temperance and judgment.
We have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servants,
R.W. BARNWELL,
J.H. ADAMS,
JAMES L. ORR,
Commissioners.
[Inclosures.]
| December 20, 1860 - South Carolina Declaration of Secession
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THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA:
At a Convention of the People of the State of South Carolina, begun and holden at Columbia on the seventeenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty, and thence continued by adjournment to Charleston, and there, by divers adjournments, to the twentieth of December in the same year:
AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America":
We, the People of the State of South Carolina in convention assembled, to declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the ordinance adopted by us in convention on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified and also all acts and parts of acts of the general assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the "United States of America," is hereby dissolved.
Done at Charleston the twentieth day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty.
D.F. JAMISON,
Delegate from Barnwell, and
President of the Convention, and others.
Attest:
BENJAMIN F. ARTHUR,
Clerk of the Convention.
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| December 20, 1860 - Memorandum to the State of South Carolina
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OFFICE OF SECRETARY OF STATE,
Charleston, S.C., December 22, 1860.
I do hereby certify that the foregoing ordinance is a true and correct copy taken from the original on file in this office.
Witness my hand and the seal of the State.
[L.S.]
ISAAC H. MEANS,
Secretary of State.
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| December 28, 1860 - Authorization of commissioners to treat with the United States Government
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The State of South Carolina, by the Convention of the People of the said State, to Robert W. Barnwell, James H. Adams, and James L. Orr:
Whereas the Convention of the People of the State of South Carolina, begun and holden at Columbia on the seventeenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty, and thence continued by adjournment to Charleston, did, by resolution, order "That three Commissioners to be elected by ballot of the Convention, be directed forthwith to proceed to Washington, authorized and empowered to treat with the Government of the United States for the delivery of the forts, magazines, light-houses, and other real with their appurtenances, within the limits of South Carolina, and also for an apportionment of the public debt and for a division of all other property held by the Government of the United States as agent of the confederated States, of which South Carolina, was recently a member; and, generally, to negotiate as to all other measures and arrangements proper to be made and adopted in the existing relations of the parties, and for the continuance of peace and amity between this Commonwealth and the Government at Washington":
And whereas the said Convention did, by ballot, elect you to the said office of Commissaries to the Government at Washington:
Now, be it known that the said Convention, by these presents, doth commission you, Robert W. Barnwell, James H. Adams, and James L. Orr, as Commissaries to the Government at Washington, to have, to hold, and to exercise the said office, with all the powers, rights, and privileges conferred upon the same by the terms of the resolution herein cited.
Given under the seal of the State, at Charleston, the twenty-second day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty.
[L.S.]
D.F. JAMISON,
President.
ISAAC H. MEANS,
Secretary of State.
Attest:
B.F. ARTHUR,
Clerk of the Convention.
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(indorsement)
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