[Bull Snipe]

“The Yankee, and even the Thomas Freeborn has a big cannon on it.”

You have made this assertion many times over the years.
Yet you have never been able to prove the contention that the civilian owned contract steam tugs were armed with cannon. You offered up a photo taken in 1863 of Yankee with a 32 pounder on her deck. That was a long time after Sumter. Once the tugs were purchased by the U.S. Navy, they were armed. But that was after the Fort Sumter mission ended.

[DiogenesLamp]

We have a photograph of the Thomas Freeborn with a big cannon on it. We also have information from the historical record that it was involved in firefight at the end of April 1861. (Or early in May. I forget exactly.)

You contend that after Sumter, they quickly reinforced the decks to carry the weight of a cannon, and maybe this is true, but at this point it is not unreasonable to think the Thomas Freeborn had a cannon on it prior to the Sumter Mission.

You also overlook the fact that the Confederate intel said there would be more ships than this coming, The Brooklyn being one of them, but at the time the Confederates had no real way of knowing exactly what sort of force Lincoln was sending.

What they did know with certainty is that a number of armed warships were coming, and they meant business.

If your read Beauregard's account of the Sumter incident, it is clear he expected not only a larger naval force, but invasions by marines and infantry that never manifested.

Lincoln's goal was to create the illusion of a force attacking the Confederates to goad the Confederates into starting the war, while at the same time convince the people up in the North that it was a "peaceful mission" with no belligerent intent.

It's like the same sort of lying we see today, like in the Keystone pipeline farce. They are claiming "environmentalism", while their intent is to make sure Warren Buffet keeps making that $30.00 per barrel he gets shipping that oil through his railroad.

[BroJoeK]

Bull Snipe: "Yet you have never been able to prove the contention that the civilian owned contract steam tugs were armed with cannon."

I suppose you guys know that, of the three tugs intended for Lincoln's resupply fleet to Fort Sumter, only one, Yankee ever arrived, and that was after the battle was over.
Of the others, Uncle Ben was somehow seized by Confederates in Wilmington -- thus suggesting it was not, after all, armed.
Thomas Freeborn never sailed, thus its status as armed or not-armed is irrelevant.

The only armed Union ship near the mouth of Charleston Harbor when the Confederate assault on Fort Sumter began was the small Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane.
It (she?) was 730 tons, with six naval guns and a crew of 95.

Of course, all that is irrelevant since the Confederate government's decision to assault Fort Sumter was made several days earlier, on receipt of Lincoln's message to SC Gov. Pickens, announcing Lincoln's resupply mission, and advising Pickens that no force would be used if Confederates did not first resist.
So the size & configuration of Lincoln's fleet had nothing to do with it, rather it was Lincoln's message, intended to be peaceful, which triggered Confederates to start Civil War.