[Aric2000]

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.

[Non-Sequitur]

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.

Should the Cubans decide to shell and occupy Guantanamo Bay the I assume that would be OK with you?

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...

And yet Davis fell for it, inspite of the warnings of his own secretary of state who, according you your explanation, must have been considerably smarter.

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.

After over a day of bombardment by confederate batteries.

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.

You have just summed up Jefferson Davis' train of thought.

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

Except fire the first shot. That was left up to Jefferson Davis and he jumped at the chance. Shouldn't Davis have been doing all he could NOT to start a war, too?

[WhiskeyPapa]

Attempts by the Confederate government to settle its differences with the Union were spurned by Lincoln...

He had to. There were laws that he had to see obeyed. Not only that, there was no confederate government; there were just some U.S. citizens trying to wrest by treason and force what thegy couldn't get in the courts.

What about the confederate government? Did you know that the CSA gov't passed a law in May, 1861 that required private owned to private creditors in the north be paid to the CSA treasury? Did Lincoln do anything that far outside the law?

Walt