If one thinks that firing a first shot constitutes blame for a war, then they are wrong. The United States government affixed the official beginning of the war with Lincoln's call of 75,000 troops and the blockade decree.
However, if one still wants to affix the beginning on the first to fire, then you have to go back to January 8, 1861 when Federal troops first fired on Florida state militia at Ft. Barrancas, Pensacola Bay, Florida.
And if that does not suit the issue, one can go back to John Brown's raid, funded by Northern interests. Or go back to Kansas and Missouri where skirmishes predated all of this.
See how silly that is.
You would be right to say that Confederate firing on Ft. Sumter was the first major skirmish. But then you have to realize that the revenue cutter, Harriet Lane, had fired the first shot several hours before the Confederate batteries began shelling.
So, again, where does that take you?
Your comment: "I think it’s very important to determine what happened first. So, let’s add to the time line shown by no lu chan.
December 20, 1860 – South Carolina declares it’s secession from the Union
January 8, 1861 - Federal Troops in the area of Ft. Barrancas fired on Florida militia.
January 9, 1861 – Star of the West was fired upon while attempting to bring supplies to Fort Sumter.
So, you state “If one thinks that firing a first shot constitutes blame for a war, then they are wrong. The United States government affixed the official beginning of the war with Lincoln’s call of 75,000 troops and the blockade decree.” That’s an interesting thought process. According to this logic the OFFICIAL date of the beginning of the war is when it started, and what comes before that is unimportant. By that logic, the OFFICIAL start of WW2 for the US was December 08, 1941 when Roosevelt signed the Declaration of War, and anything that came before that was unimportant. Is there anything that occurred before December 08, 1941 that might have had some import on our decision to declare War on Japan? Try hard, I know you can think of something.
Then, you continue to state that who fired first was unimportant (you say “silly”) by pointing out that you could just as well point to John Brown’s Raid, or the border skirmishing in Kansas and Missouri as causes. By that logic you could well point to the US ban of sales of aviation gas to Japan in July 1940 as a cause of World War 2. While these are important precursors to the War, who shot first was still important. Would there have been such an enthusiastic response from the American public to war with Japan if they hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor first? Just as there wouldn’t have been such an enthusiastic response by the Northern public if the Confederacy had not attacked first.
As far as the January 8 incident at Fort Barrancas, my understanding was that the Florida militia showed up and demanded the surrender of the fort, at which time the US Army troops there fired warning shots, after which they spiked their guns and retreated to Fort Pickens. So, although the US troops fired the first shots, I would think the aggressor would clearly be the Florida militia who showed up and demanded their surrender. In any case, this was very much a skirmish (only 50 US troops present), and not the major battle that Fort Sumter was. It also didn’t make the papers and inflame public opinion (in the North or the South) the way Fort Sumter did.