Interesting point I discovered a month or so ago. Lee was stationed in Texas, but somehow he was in Washington DC to be offered command of the Army on April 17th. The surrender of Sumter took place April 13th.
Why was Lee in Washington? Did they send him orders to come back to Washington just so they could hand him command of the army, and if they did, does this not imply that they had made up their mind to be at war with the South prior to April 12?
In that era, one did not simply get word to someone in Texas and have them back in Washington DC in Four days. It took much longer than that.
It implies fore knowledge of war, and who would have that more so than the man with the power and intent of starting it?
The south was threatening to secede before Lincoln was elected, and mostly did before he was sworn in, which was 4 months after the election, not two like now. It wasn’t exactly a secret that war was a possibility. Faced with the possibility of war, why wouldn’t the War Department order their best general to Washington? So no it doesn’t imply what you infer.