one o'clock
`` A ship be sent at once to the relief of Sumter . '' With stubborn terror the President refused to sign the order for an armed vessel . At one o'clock they compromised on the little steamer , _ Star of the West _ , and Buchanan agreed that she should attempt to land provisions for Anderson 's fifty-odd men . Holt hurried from the council chamber at one o'clock with a smile of triumph playing about his sinister mouth . His plan had succeeded . He had worked Stanton as the legal adviser of the President exactly as he had foreseen . The little steamer would test the mettle of the men of South Carolina who were training their batteries on Fort Sumter .