General Scott had advised him to transfer his troops to Fort Sumter if he received no reinforcements.

If that were the case then why did Andersons moving to Fort Sumter cause such a uproar within President Buchanan's, his cabinet members and Governor Picken of South Carolina, leading to the resignation of one of those cabinet members, Governor Floyd? Evidently Anderson violated something within the delicate political understanding at a higher level of the governments adminstration than General Winfield Scott authority. Why did President Buchanan and the Secretary of War order him to return to Fort Moultrie, but he complained he couldn't could obey that order because he had burned it?

In my opinion Winfield Scott is suspect as being involved in a plot to inflame the situation if South Carolina carried through on its threat to seceed if Lincoln was elected. Lincoln and Scott were close political allies going back to the old Whig party days and Scott himself running for President in 1850.