Governor Pickens declares South Carolina waters, especially Charleston Harbor, off-limits to U. S. vessels
Governor Francis Pickens of South Carolina issued a proclamation warning "all public vessels of the United States" that they were forbidden "to exercise any authority whatever in the waters of South Carolina" and were especially restricted from Charleston Harbor and any attempt to resupply or reinforce Fort Sumter. He signed it as governor and commander-in-chief "in and over the State of South Carolina." (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861 (New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1887), 138.