[rustbucket]

The confederate ranks were formed a full month before Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address on Monday, March 4, 1861 and Lincoln didn’t order troops until three days after the confederate attack on Fort Sumter (April 12th).

Source, please.

[RasterMaster]

I failed to bookmark the orignal link that listed the early February date I used, according to the listing in Wikipedia:

“The Provisional Army of the Confederate States (PACS) was authorized by Act of Congress on February 28, 1861.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_Army#Organization

Lincoln’s Inaugural was on Monday, March 4, 1861.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln’s_first_inaugural_address

Needless to say, the confederate army was already well equipped by April to fire on a Federal fort so preparations had already begun much earlier for sparking the Civil War before Lincoln was in office to take any action...

http://www.mce.k12tn.net/civil_war/confederacy.htm

[RasterMaster]

The following timeline gives one hint of the February 1861 date:

February 1861 — The South Seizes Federal Forts.
When President Buchanan — Lincoln’s predecessor — refused to surrender southern federal forts to the seceding states, southern state troops seized them. At Fort Sumter, South Carolina troops repulsed a supply ship trying to reach federal forces based in the fort. The ship was forced to return to New York, its supplies undelivered.

http://rs6.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/tl1861.html