"A question solved by violence must remain unsolved forever.
- Jefferson Davis-"
Gee, Mr. Davis, maybe you should've meditated on that bit of wisdom BEFORE ordering the troops to shell Fort Sumter.
Or at least listened to members of his cabinet.
"Firing on that fort will inagurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen...At this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend in the North...You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountains to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it put us in the wrong; it is fatal." -- Robert Toombs
Gee, Major Anderson, maybe you and your Yankee Army should have skidaddled out of Ft. Sumter, when you were told to, and there wouldn't have been a NEED TO SHELL.