Alexander H. Stephens A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States (1870), Vol. 2, p. 36. 75 MB PDF file "I maintain that it was inaugurated and begun, though no blow had been struck, when the hostile fleet, styled the "Relief Squadron," with eleven ships, carrying two hundred and eighty-five guns and two thousand four hundred men, was sent out from New York and Norfolk, with orders from the authorities at Washington, to reenforce Fort Sumter peaceably, if permitted "but forcibly if they must."
