So you do acknowledge then, finally, that it was Lincoln who provoked the hostilities.
Bruce Catton suggests that the firing on Fort Sumter energized the exact feeling in the north that President Lincoln wanted. James McPherson called that reaction an "eagle-scream of patriotic fury."
Poor, clueless rebels.
But I tend to think that Maury Klien in "Days of Defiance" is on target. He says there was a lot of confusion on what to do, and who was supposed to do what. Seward gave orders to naval officers -- ignoring SecNav Welles entirely. It was all a big muddle.
It can't be stressed enough that --very--few-- people expected the war that blossomed out of the Spring of 1861. Certainly Lincoln did not. There -was- a real impulse to give up all the forts. But Lincoln never played false with the rebel government or the rebel commissioners.
Walt
That was patriotism of the sort that Samuel Johnson was referring to when he characterized patriotism as "the last refuge of a scoundrel".
"Poor, clueless rebels."
In your delusional and grossly distorted view of history only.