Informed of rumor that Buchanan has instructed Major Anderson to surrender Fort Sumter if attacked, Lincoln exclaims, "If that is true they ought to hang him!" He adds that he has just written to Washburne "to tell General Scott confidentially that I wished him to be prepared, immediately after my inauguration, to make arrangements at once to hold the forts, or, if they had been taken, to take them back again." ISLA—Nicolay Memo., Ms.

Lincoln writes Major David Hunter that he thinks forts must be retaken, if they fall. Lincoln acknowledges letter from Peter H. Silvester of Coxsackie, N.Y., former colleague in Congress, but has time to write no more than that, and: "If Mr. B. surrenders the forts, I think they must be retaken." He replies to letter from Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, another former congressional colleague, assuring him that South will not be harmed by Republican rule. Abraham Lincoln to David Hunter, 22 December 1860, CW, 4:159; Abraham Lincoln to Peter H. Silvester, 22 December 1860, CW, 4:160; Abraham Lincoln to Alexander H. Stephens, 22 December 1860, CW, 4:160-61.