One little fort is a gun to the head of the Big Confederacy? I don't think so.
Also, remember that on the evening of April 11, 1861 the federal ship Harriet Lane fired on the steamship Nashville, which was just outside Charleston Harbor.
It sounds like that was a warning shot -- an intentional miss -- to get the ship to stop and identify itself. When we say "first shot" we're usually talking about something more.
What is scary is that today we are more divided than we were in 1860 and 1861. Perhaps “divided” is not quite accurate, because it assumes just two sides; I think “fractured” is more appropriate, as there are so many factions now, each with competing interests and allegiances, which is far more dangerous.
If one issue deeply divides the country it can be worse than if people are divided in different ways by different issues.
Right now if somebody wanted to secede based on one issue -- sanctuary cities, say -- they'd have to face the fact that people in their own part of the country were divided on other issues (and some in the other part of the country might well agree with the seceders on that one issue).
Back then, you had solid blocs agreeing about slavery and not caring about other issues. People were willing to follow Davis and didn't quibble about his views on other things.
“One little fort is a gun to the head of the Big Confederacy? I don’t think so.”
History is replete with such “little forts,” the world over. The forts at the mouth of Mobile Bay; Fort Pickens that protected Pensacola (and that the federal navy invested at the same time as Sumter). On a more global scale there was the fort on Corregidor that guarded Manila bay; Gibraltar was constructed to command the channel between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic; the fort at Singapore was built to command the Strait of Malacca. I can go on and on.