That isn't exactly what happened. Lt. Col Gardner had wanted to arm the civilian workers working on the forts with forty muskets. These were removed and stopped at the wharf by the wharf master who notified the city leaders. Their complaint was the arms are for issue to the local citizens in case of insurrection or they were afraind the muskets would leave the city to be used against them. They had a point, the arsenal arms are not U.S. Army issue, Anderson's men got their issue from the U.S. Army Ordanance Depot not the city armory, which are federal arms issued for local defense allocated to the city. The arms were returned and orders from above to Gardner not to take armory weapons came from the White House. Anderson tried to take even more muskets from the city armory, again to arm the workers and he was told that Brev. Col. B. Hugar, U.S Army Ordnance Corps, ordered no arms where to be removed from the armory without permission from Washington.

______________________
David Upton