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I'm sorry, but the firing on a single fort in Charleston harbor simply does not give legitimacy to the military invasion and occupation of 11 states.

That's like saying the bombing of a single naval base in Hawaii did not legitimize the atomic destruction of two civilian cities. Accepting for a moment that the confederate claims of independence was valid, then the confederacy initiated hostilities at Sumter and officially declared war a few days later. The Union had war forced on them and carried it out to the end. And that included sending troops into the south.

Charleston's right of self defense was being violated and threatened by the presence of a foreign military in its harbor.

That in and of itself is no more cause for war than is the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Does Cuba have the right to shell it into submission and occupy it? I would say not. Charleston was in no danger. The confederacy itself was in no danger. Had Lincoln landed a few hundred more troops, or a few thousand for that matter, the threat would not have changed. But the south felt the need to begin the war then and there. They sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind. They have nobody to blame for the suffering that happened afterwards except themselves.

On March 5, 1861, the day after his inauguration as president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln received a message from Maj. Robert Anderson, commander of the U.S. troops holding Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The message stated that there was less than a six week supply of food left in the fort.

Attempts by the Confederate government to settle its differences with the Union were spurned by Lincoln, and the Confederacy felt it could no longer tolerate the presense of a foreign force in its territory. Believing a conflict to be inevitable, Lincoln ingeniously devised a plan that would cause the Confederates to fire the first shot and thus, he hoped, inspire the states that had not yet seceded to unite in the effort to restore the Union. ........

The generous terms of surrender allowed Anderson to run up his flag for a hunderd-gun salute before he and his men evacuated the fort the next day. The salute began at 2:00 P.M. on April 14, but was cut short to 50 guns after an accidental explosion killed one of the gunners and mortally wounded another. Carrying their tattered banner, the men marched out of the fort and boarded a boat that ferried them to the Union ships outside the harbor. They were greeted as heroes on their return to the North.

Hmm, the South were the bad guys in this huh? Why did Lincoln write letters of congratulation and why was he so happy that "his plan" to get the south to fire first worked so well. He planned it, he pushed and pushed, if it had not worked, he would have found another way to get the south to start the war.

Lincoln did EVERYTHING he could to start a war, he should have been doing all he could NOT to start a war.

That's like saying the bombing of a single naval base in Hawaii did not legitimize the atomic destruction of two civilian cities.

Your analogy is illogical. The bombing of Hiroshima did NOT stem directly from Pearl Harbor but from the circumstances of the next 4 years of war in between. Lincoln's invasion into the south and his blockade DID come as a direct result of that single incident at the fort. Might I also remind you that Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack with massive casualties and no hopes of taking the base whereas Sumter was an anticipated attack with zero casualties and a surrender of the fort on non violent terms.

Accepting for a moment that the confederate claims of independence was valid, then the confederacy initiated hostilities at Sumter

No, not really. The first shot was fired a day earlier from a yankee ship trying to impede access to the harbor.

The Union had war forced on them and carried it out to the end.

As always it all goes back to your shunning of responsibility. To you it is all "The south made us do it"