Bro, I am not familiar with any telegraph between Lincoln and Pickens ever. Perhaps you can produce it for the record.
That failing, you must have some confusion.....on April 8, 1861 President Lincoln sent a dispatch by courier to South Carolina Governor Pickens advising that he would re-supply the fort.
It had been reported in Northern newspapers , that relief squadrons headed for the South consisted of eleven ships, carrying naval weapons guns, and one thousand, four hundred men in addition to the provisions to which the President had referred.
On this evening, Union Lieutenant Talbot, a frequent messenger to Ft. Sumter, accompanied a State Department clerk, Robert Chew who read a note that announced that the fort would be supplied with provisions at every hazard. This dispatch read, "I am directed by the President of the United States to notify you to expect an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only, and that if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition, will be made, without further notice, or in case of attack.
Lincoln's note was not signed, nor did the courier carry any orders for receiving a reply from the Governor.
Lincoln was not revealing the extent of his plans.
Go easy on ol' BrokebackJoe. When you've been in the revisionism business as long as the False Causers have been, things are apt to get a might muddled.
(I think ol' BrokebackJoe and his sewing circle get their War of Northern Aggression history from Harry Turtledove novels.)
So, I take it you agree that Lincoln sent, and Pickens received, the note which is reported in every discussion on this subject.
You wish to advise me this note was sent by courier, not by telegraph, and I'll accept that, though have not seen it reported elsewhere, "assumed" telegraph used, since transmission was quite rapid.
PeaRidge: "Lincoln was not revealing the extent of his plans."
But in fact, I've just demonstrated to you, from Lincoln's orders to his resupply leaders, that they received exactly the same instructions: resupply only, no military force to be used if no military resistance encountered.
So the choice to use Lincoln's mission as their excuse for launching war against the United States was strictly made by Jefferson Davis, doubtless with urging from Pickens and other Confederate leaders.