I grew up on the Gulf Coast without air conditioning. Ah, those were the days.
I have posted on these threads before that I thought the Davis administration was snookered into firing on the fort. It would have been better if they had simply let Lincoln try to collect revenue on imports to the Confederacy.
They also made an error by stopping food supplies to the fort such as the beef and cabbages mentioned in the April 5th letter. I think this was done in response to the alarming army and navy activity in the North and suggested by the Southern Commissioner in Washington. The food supplies were cut off on April 7.
I believe what Lincoln did was indeed a provocation, an intentional one. The Confederates had said in effect, cross this line, and we'll knock your block off. Lincoln crossed the line.
From Lincoln to Fox on May 1, 1861 (posted long ago by nolu chan, Link):
You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter even if it should fail, and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.
As President, the uncontested surrender of a high profile symbol as Sumter, as one of his first acts in office, would have made him a joke. The plight of the men at Sumter was being followed intently by the Northern press and people. Think Wake Island or Corregidor during WWII. For Lincoln to do nothing was simply not a viable option. Even Buchanan, who who did all in his power to avoid making tough decisions tried to relieve Sumter. It was something that the CiC simply had to do!
Davis understood that when he ordered that the crisis be brought to a head by cutting off supplies.
The question is, why did Davis do that? Why was he in such a hurry?
You argue that Lincoln intentionally "provoked" the Confederates into firing. But all it would have taken is for the Confederates to send a few supplies to the handful of men sitting out there to maintain the status quo and there was little that Lincoln could do about it. Sumter was not doing anything to block trade in and out of Charleston. It was no threat whatsoever. Davis could have just pretended it wasn't there and gone about his business, which is what Robert Toombs advised.
I will argue that Davis was guilty of "provocation" through a combination of desperation and ignorance of his opponent.
The seven Deep South slave states had rushed into secession in the months before Lincoln even took office. But the 8 other slave states of the Upper South and Border States had rejected secession, some by narrow margins and others by very large margins. Those 8 other states dwarfed the Deep South in terms of population and economic resources. His Confederacy had very little prospect of longterm success if they did not join it, and for each additional day that Lincoln served in office without threatening the "institutions" of the South as breathlessly predicted by the Fire-Eaters for the previous year, the odds of those states joining the Confederacy would have decreased to zero.
At the same time, over the months ahead as tempers cooled and Deep South began to realized that the costs born by the larger Union such as subsidized mail delivery, free trade with both Upper South and Northern states, diplomatic missions and treaties, protection on the high seas or on the frontiers, maintenance of courts, and all the other functions of national government would fall entirely on their limited tax base, a serious case of "buyers remorse" was a certainty.
I argue that Jeff Davis intentionally "provoked" the crisis" because he realized that his window of opportunity was limited and he needed a military response for Lincoln in order to move the Upper South, especially the wealthiest and most populus slave state, Virginia, away from the Union. That desperation, coupled with a profound "misunderestimation" of Lincoln and the Northern people, whom he calculated were too timid and weak willed to react, lead him to make a foolish and tragic decision --- the first a many such foolish decisions he would make of the next 4 years.