However, they promised safe transport out of Charleston for Anderson and his men, who would be permitted to carry their weapons and personal property and to salute the Stars and Stripes, which, the Confederates acknowledged, “You have upheld so long.under the most trying circumstances.” Anderson thanked them for such “fair, manly, and courteous terms.” Yet he stated, “It is a demand with which I regret that my sense of honor, and of my obligation to my Government, prevent my compliance.” Anderson added grimly that he would be starved out in a few days-if the Confederate cannonthat ringed the harbor didn’t batter him to pieces first. The Confederates demanded immediate evacuation of the fort. Robert Anderson, who had been holed up there since just after Christmas with a tiny garrison of 87 officers and enlisted men-the last precarious symbol of federal power in passionately secessionist South Carolina. Davis led the envoys to the fort’s commander, Maj. Army-no relation to the newly installed president of the Confederacy-met the arriving delegation. Slaves rowed the passengers the nearly three and a half miles across the harbor to the looming hulk of Fort Sumter, where Lt. The vessel carried three envoys representing the Confederate States government, established in Montgomery, Alabama, two months before. On the afternoon of April 11, 1861, a small open boat flying a white flag pushed off from the tip of the narrow peninsula surrounding the city of Charleston. After Union troops refused to evacuate Fort Sumter, today a National Monument, Confederates opened fire.