Anderson wasn't assigned to that fort. He took it over in the middle of the night. He started the aggression. If he wanted a peaceful relationship, he should have not taken over the fort, which was a belligerent aggressive act.
You want to blame Lincoln, so you say that he had free will and nobody else did, but there may have been room for commanders on the ground to negotiate a resolution.
It was already done. Anderson had announced he would evacuate at noon on April 15th. Then the warships showed up and triggered the fighting. Anderson even blames Lincoln, but not overtly or directly.
Beauregard attacked the fort and the fleet didn't approach and fire back, so far as I know.
This is correct. They had been told to wait for Captain Mercer in the Powhatan before implementing any force against the confederates. Mercer was never coming, but they didn't know that.
Sure, if you exclude other options and if you assume that commanders never have discretion to interpret their orders as they see fit.
My recollection is that the orders said something along the lines of "if resisted, use all the force at your command to place both supplies and reinforcements into Sumter."
If the ships had gone in shooting, you could say it was war and blame the Yankees. That probably would have been the wiser course.
That is what the Confederates believed was going to happen, and they believed this because they had been sent telegraph messages from trusted sources saying that this was what those ships were going to do.
Indeed, that is what their publicly known orders said they would do. Nobody knew Lincoln was going to send secret orders to the command ship relieving Captain Mercer of command, and sending it to Florida under the command of a lieutenant. (Two ranks below a captain in the naval ranking system of that era.) It was an unheard of thing in that era.
The Confederates were well and truly hoodwinked.
It was useful as a symbol that the Union hadn't entirely surrendered to the secessionists and that the union was intact.
It is pretty apparent that had the Confederates ignored the hostile force in their midst and just went about trading with Europe while ignoring the Union, they would have likely made their secession a fait accompli.
I do recall reading a discussion among Lincoln's cabinet officials worrying that the South would do exactly this, and six months later they would still have a useless garrison once more needing to be resupplied.
Nobody in the North wanted a war, and nobody in the South wanted one either. Had one not started (due to Lincoln's intentional provocation), the South's secession would have been accepted by the Northern states.
It is hardly an aggressive act to move from one property one owns to another in time of crisis if the second is more defensible. No one would fault our government if it had a more defensible building in Tehran or Benghazi that it could move State Department personnel to when our embassy or consulate was in danger.
Anderson even blames Lincoln, but not overtly or directly.
You were just blaming Anderson yourself. One thing I've learned from military history is how many generals and admirals have grievances, grudges and major peeves with others in the chain of command. Anderson was a Unionist and also essentially a Southerner. His world had fallen apart. It's not surprising that he would be bitter and try to blame someone.
The Confederates were well and truly hoodwinked.
Because their spies told them something that wasn't true? Letting spies believe things that aren't true is sort of what governments are expected to do, isn't it?
In time of crisis, though, things change quickly, what's planned doesn't work and people don't agree on the course of action, so one doesn't have to believe in conspiratorial plots to explain mixed signals and conflicting messages.
If I got a message saying we won't shoot if you let us peacefully reprovision the fort, I would let you peacefully reposition the fort. If I knew that you had some contingency plan to use force if peaceful means didn't work, that might make more inclined to let you peacefully reprovision the fort. I would actually expect you to have some contingency plan and wouldn't take it as something untoward or underhanded.
It is pretty apparent that had the Confederates ignored the hostile force in their midst and just went about trading with Europe while ignoring the Union, they would have likely made their secession a fait accompli.
Who's naive now? War would probably have broken out in short order - over the territories, over the border states, over the District of Columbia, over border raiders, or Southern unionists, or secessionist violence. The mood at the time was militant, not peacefully commercial.
Nobody in the North wanted a war, and nobody in the South wanted one either.
Naive again. What about Edmund Ruffin and Louis Wigfall, secessionist propagandists and politicians who gleefully joined in the firing on Sumter? There was talk of Revolution in Charleston and 1860, and when people talk of Revolution, violence and war usually follow.
However, I did just find out that William Yancey, another very vocal and passionate secessionists, proposed that all military bases be returned to the Union if they would let the South go. That's an indication that things weren't as simple and overdetermined and one-track as you and Davis thought they were. There were other options.
Your wrong about nobody wanted war in the north. Here is the resolution passed by true New York legislature pledging any money or men the federal government might need to put down the rebellion. This was before the firing on Fort Sumter.
ANTI-SECESSION RESOLUTIONS OF THE NEW YORK LEGISLATURE
Passed by the New York State Assembly, 11 January 1861
Whereas, The insurgent State of South Carolina, after seizing the Post-offices, Custom-House, moneys and fortifications of the Federal Government, has, by firing into a vessel ordered by the Government to convey troops and provisions to Fort Sumter, virtually declared war; and
Whereas, The forts and property of the United States Government in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana have been unlawfully seized, with hostile intentions; and
Whereas, Their Senators in Congress avow and maintain their treasonable acts; therefore,
Resolved, (if the Senate concur,) That the Legislature of New York is profoundly impressed with the value of the Union, and determined to preserve it unimpaired; that it greets with joy the recent firm, dignified and patriotic Special Message of the President of the United States, and that we tender to him through the Chief Magistrate of our own State, whatever aid in men and money may be required to enable him to enforce the laws and uphold the authority of the Federal Government; and that, in the defence of the Union, which has conferred prosperity and happiness upon the American people, renewing the pledge given and redeemed by our fathers, we are ready to devote our fortunes, our lives, and our sacred honor.
Resolved, (if the Senate concur,) That the Union-loving citizens and representatives of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee, who labor with devoted courage and patriotism to withhold their States from the vortex of secession, are entitled to the gratitude and admiration of the whole people.
Resolved, (if the Senate concur,) That the Government be respectfully requested to forward, forthwith, copies of the foregoing resolutions to the President of the Nation, and the Governors of all the States of the Union.