Gustavus Vasa Fox, Fort Sumter (American National Bibliography)

Although [Gustavus] Fox was a Democrat with little interest in the slavery issue, he was outraged by secession. He was a patriotic nationalist who believed it was the manifest destiny of the United States to expand, not to disintegrate. After South Carolina fired on the Star of the West and prevented the reinforcement of Fort Sumter in Charleston's harbor, Fox, as a civilian, planned an expedition for that fort's relief. Through his wife's brother-in-law, Montgomery Blair, the new postmaster general, Fox met Lincoln, who adopted his plan. As the expedition approached Charleston, the Confederacy attacked Sumter, but stormy weather and absent vessels prevented Fox from provisioning Sumter before it surrendered. He was chagrined, but Lincoln assured him that above all others he would select him for a similar "daring and dangerous enterprize" (Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 4 [1953-1955], p. 351).