[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "First he would need a pretext for war.
This he found using the navy in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
I meant to say, the Fort Sumter Incident."

Fort Sumter was a "pretext" only in the same sense that, for examples, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were "pretexts".
All had the effects of convincing all Americans that war had begun in earnest.

"After reading Lincoln's letter to the governor of South Carolina, [CSA Secretary of State] Toombs said to [Jefferson] Davis:

"Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North.
You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death.
It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."[19]"

Toombs was right, Davis was wrong.

[jeffersondem]

“Fort Sumter was a “pretext” only in the same sense that, for examples, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were “pretexts”.”

To compare Fort Sumter - no battle deaths - to Pearl Harbor or September 11 is inapt and unapt.

It is also inept.