Well aware of the details of the Harriet Lane and the Nashville. Point was, it was still an act of aggression.
How kindly do you think the North would have taken it had a ship from Charleston sailed up to New York harbor and fired at a ship coming out?
People on shore could see flashes of light and hear big booms, so they may very well have thought this was an attack.
You may be ignorant of this fact, but things were pretty tense in the area of the Harbor entrance. Some warmonger had sent a fleet of warships with instructions to attack if they were resisted in putting supplies into that fort.
And that's if you believe him. People had already tried to sneak troops into the fort in January, but they were caught and turned around.
After a stunt like that, people probably didn't believe what the Union government told them. They had been told repeatedly by Union government officials that the Fort would be turned over to them, and the next thing they know, here are warships ready to fight over it.
Yeah, I wouldn't be trusting a D@mn thing they said either.
The sorry slaver has been reduced to making extremely weak excuses now!
Pretty pathetic.
The instigators new they were starting a war. They had travelled to be there for the fulfillment if their dreamw.
“...Edmund Ruffin, another noted Virginia secessionist, had traveled to Charleston to be present for the beginning of the war...”
Clearly he was not aware of the details of the ‘action’ between the Lane and the Nashville.
He has been caught with his breeches down, yet again.
1. Now he is trying to claim: ‘still an act of aggression’...
........ Nope. not even close.
2. Then he jumps to: “how would you like it if we had done that...”
........ The petulant child defense. Sigh. Pretty lame.
3. Then he drops that line to go with “...so they may have thought this was an attack”
....... They didn’t think this was an attack. Note the jump to plural ‘flashes of light’ and ‘big booms’ to describe a single shot. Note the use of ‘people on shore’ - he invokes the image of scared civilians instead of trained soldiers...many veterans of the recent Mexican-American war.
4. Then he jumps to: ‘things were tense’
....... Dude, the attack was planned and scheduled. P.T. was a trained vet, not some scared little ‘diogenes lamp’.
“Col. Chesnut considered this reply to be too conditional and wrote a reply, which he handed to Anderson at 3:20 a.m.: “Sir: by authority of Brigadier General Beauregard, commanding the Provisional Forces of the Confederate States, we have the honor to notify you that he will open fire of his batteries on Fort Sumter in one hour from this time.” Anderson escorted the officers back to their boat, shook hands with each one, and said “If we never meet in this world again, God grant that we may meet in the next.”
5. Then he tries to blame President Lincoln.
But we all know...
“On April 6, Lincoln notified Governor Pickens that “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, [except] in case of an attack on the fort.”
6. Then he drops all that to try a ‘but they were lying’ line.
Hmmm, hard to respond to such a vacuous claim.
His vague ‘People’ would be President Buchanan.
The ‘caught and turned around’ would be the democrats firing on the Star of the West starting the civil war.
A normal resupply mission is not a ‘stunt’
7. His final line... ‘’Yeah, I would not be trusting a (redacted) thing they said’
The lad is a wee bit paranoid.
He is probably capable of passing any of the new ‘red flag’ laws.
He knows they started the war, and has been reduced to claiming that they started the war because they were weak, paranoid, and scared.
So, lets get back to reality. Reality:
planned, scheduled and executed.
“we have the honor to notify you that he will open fire of his batteries on Fort Sumter in one hour from this time.”
People on shore could see flashes of light and hear big booms.
Heavy rain squalls that morning bring suspicion to the veracity of the “eye witness” accounts. Could have been lightning and thunder. Lane only fired one shot
Any naval vessel would have fired a shot across the bow on a ship running dark, and not flying a national ensign off of the entrance to New York harbor. Standard procedure at sea by all navies at the time. As with Nashville, as soon as she identified herself, she was allowed to enter Charleston Harbor.