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Fit out Powhatan to go to sea at the earliest possible moment under sealed orders. Orders by a confidential messenger go forward to-morrow. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Commandant Navy Yard,
Brooklyn, N.Y.
[1] Naval Records, Series I, IV, 109. The several communications addressed to Foote, Mercer, and Porter on April 1, as printed in various sources are all in
general agreement, but our failure to locate the original documents issued in connection with the Powhatan episode leaves much to be desired in clarifying the circumstances which occasioned the several communications. The fact that the text of these communications as printed in Hertz, II, 825-28, is either badly garbled or derived from an unknown if authentic source, further complicates the matter. It seems scarcely probable that Lincoln would have written two different letters in each case, at once so verbally different, yet substantially the same. Hence the editors have relied on the Official Records for the texts here reproduced. Lincoln's secret orders to Foote, Mercer, and Porter were issued on Seward's advice, unknown to the Navy Department. Hence there developed a sad confusion which deprived the Sumter expedition of the Powhatan, Gustavus V. Fox, in command of the expedition, did not learn of the Powhatan's withdrawal until April 13 while awaiting its arrival at Charleston harbor. See Lincoln's letter exonerating Fox, May 1, infra.