We have all been taught to believe this, and this is why it is unpleasant to consider him differently.
Because not withstanding the evidence you presented, the timing of events still remains a huge issue that neither of us can explain away.
The more you look into it, the more Lincoln's motivation for Fort Sumter looks like a carefully contrived plan to make it appear that the South started it, while downplaying his own roll in orchestrating it.
I read a New York times article from shortly after the attack on fort Sumter in which they praise Lincoln for cleverly using a ruse to get the Confederates to fire first. Even the New York times said it was Lincoln's manipulation that caused it to happen.
Let me relate to you my understanding of what happened.
Lincoln orders 5 warships to go to Fort Sumter, and the written orders for the ships say to use their entire force against the confederates if they are resisted.
The Orders designate Captain Mercer of the Powhatan as the officer who will command the force. Lincoln then issues secret orders to Lt. Porter to take over command of the Powhatan and sail it to Pensacola instead of to Fort Sumter, but he orders him to do this in absolute secrecy.
Meanwhile the other warships and the troop carrier "Baltic" have no knowledge that the command ship will never arrive.
They have assembled off the coast of Charleston to engage in a belligerent action against the Confederates, (according to all official orders) and they were waiting for Captain Mercer to arrive and take control of the engagement.
The Confederates absolutely believed these ships were going to attack them because their written orders said they would. None of them knew that Captain Mercer had been secretly relieved of command and the flotilla of warships were effectively paralyzed.
When the ships arrived, this confirmed the orders they had gotten as to the intent of those ships. Therefore they needed to neutralize the fort before they were placed into a position of being attacked from both the Sea and the Fortress at the same time.
Lincoln later said he had simply lost track of who was commanding what ship and what their mission was, and it was all just a mistake that he sent the command ship to Florida instead of Charleston.
Well as I said, the New York times didn't think it was a "mistake", they thought it was a cleverly orchestrated plan to get the South to attack Sumter so that Lincoln would have an excuse to raise an army to invade them.
But yes, we don't want to look at Lincoln as being a cynical manipulator that deliberately triggered a war which would kill 750,000 people.
That is not how we have been taught to view him, and it is unpleasant to consider it.
But yeah I agree, it certainly is quite possible that it was a setup, and it's why I refuse to stand down from my original statement,, even though I can't prove it. It's also why I personally do not want to prove it.