[DiogenesLamp]

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.

Without sending that fleet of ships with orders to attack the Confederates in Charleston, there would have been no war. The South didn't want a war, but they had no intentions of being a rug either.

Almost all of Lincoln's cabinet advised him against sending that fleet of warships because they all believed it would start a war. Major Anderson in command of Ft Sumter wrote that it would start a war.

No Warships, no War. Also misleading the South and making promises they had no intention of keeping was also a contributing factor to the war.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014760/1861-03-11/ed-1/seq-2/

[fungoking]

Of course this wasn't South Carolina's 1st flirtation with nullification or threatening to leave the Union. The Nullification Crisis was centered there and ended after Congress passed the Force Act and Andrew Jackson threatened to “go hang the traitors.”

[Hugin]

Ft. Sumter was under siege even before the shelling started. They cut off supplies and threatened to stop any resupply. That is itself an act of war. Lincoln’s position was quite clear, he wouldn’t start hostilities but he would do what he had to do to keep all federal installations in the south. The south chose war, and yes the common sentiment was all for it. And the common sentiment in the north was for war if needed to keep the union together. But the south initiated it, and no historical revisionism can change that.