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Sherman Logan: "In actual fact, the move shifted dramatically throughout the region as soon as the CSA fired that first shot, and secession was from that point inevitable."

I think you meant "mood", but this is the great mystery that nobody fully understands.
Before Fort Sumter (April 12-14), Unionists held power throughout the Upper South -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee & Arkansas.
After Sumter, Unionists lost in every state, beginning in Virginia, and the question is: what happened?

I think the answer is, those Unionists did not so much voluntarily change their minds as they were intimidated and threatened into supporting secessionists -- specifically to prevent a coup in Virginia, that would overthrow the pro-Union government and potentially kill any unreconstructed Unionists.

In the Upper South, majority Unionists were cowed, intimidated, threatened and overthrown by large minorities of Secessionists.
But in Border States (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri), the Secessionist minorities were just too small to have that same effect, and so they refused to secede.

I recently finished Battle Cry of Freedom, a truly excellent work, BTW.

The author pointed out that northerners (and most historians since) have misinterpreted southern "unionism."

Southerners obviously fit on a spectrum, with one end favoring secession immediately, and the other end opposing it under any circumstances. The "unionists" Abe and historians have talked about so much were generally fence-sitters, not true unionists. They wanted to put off a decision in hope things would work themselves out, or wait to secede until Lincoln had committed some "overt act" that in their eyes would justify secession.

But unionists were nearly unanimous in opposition to what they called "coercion," which of course meant any attempt to actually enforce the laws of the US in the seceded states."Coercion" in most of their eyes would constitute an "overt act" of oppression.

There were true Unionists in the South, but mostly in the mountains. There were few elsewhere. In Mr. McPherson's opinion, which I think he supports very well, secession was very popular in the South, as shown by those states where a referendum was taken. Opposition was regional, not general.

The fire-eaters successfully precipitated the crisis that led to secession, but they did not intimidate their fellow citizens into secession. The population of Upper South states voluntarily walked straight into the wood chipper.

And you are of course quite right about mood, not move. :)