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Then why were troops embarked in the flotilla he dispatched to Sumter?

To be landed in the event that the resupply effort was opposed, as Lincoln stated in his letter to Pickens.

[this will have been Ward Lamon -- LG

No. This will have been Robert Chew -- NS.

Troops, gentlemen. Lincoln sent troops, after telling Governor Pickens he wasn't doing any such thing.

Read the letter again. Supplies only, if not opposed. Troops and supplies if opposed.

Footnote: Wonder where the recruits came from?

First Artillery in New York probably.

One is tempted to think they might have been, given what Lincoln was doing in Missouri at the same time.

What Lincoln was doing? The people of Missouri had assembled in convention in February and voted agains secession. The rebellious forces in the state, aided and abetted by the Davis regime, were trying to overrule that convention and take the state out of the Union. If anything Lincoln was trying to maintain the wishes of the people of the state.

No. This will have been Robert Chew -- NS.

Correct. Robert S. Chew was a State Department clerk who traveled to Charleston with Lt. Theodore Talbot. Talbot asked Governor Pickens to see Chew. Pickens wanted to give Chew a reply but Chew said he was not authorized to accept it [source: the book Days of Defiance by Maury Klein. Lincoln apparently did not want to discuss anything with the principals on the other side in a situation he knew could lead to war. Was this the action of a man of peace or the actions of someone hoping to provoke war?

Here is what Major Anderson wrote back to the army on April 8 after receiving news that the fleet was coming. Anderson could see that war would result from Lincoln's ploy and the duplicitous way it had been handled.

I had the honor to receive by yesterday's mail the letter of the honorable Secretary of War, dated April 4, and confess that what he there states surprises me very greatly, following as it does and contradicting so positively the assurance Mr. Crawford telegraphed he was authorized to make. I trust that this matter will be at once put in a correct light, as a movement made now, when the South has been erroneously informed that none such will be attempted, would produce most disastrous results throughout our country.

It is, of course, now too late for me to give any advice in reference to the proposed scheme of Captain Fox. I fear that its result cannot fail to be disastrous to all concerned. ...

... I ought to have been informed that this expedition was to come. Colonel Lamon's remark convinced me that the idea, merely hinted at to me by Captain Fox, would not be carried out. We shall strive to do our duty, though I frankly say that my heart is not in the war which I see is to be thus commenced. That God will still avert it, and cause us to resort to pacific measures to maintain our rights, is my ardent prayer.

Interestingly the April 4 letter to Anderson from the Secretary of War informing him that the expedition was coming had been placed in an envelope addressed to Captain Foster there at Fort Sumter. A security measure perhaps? Foster took it to Anderson.

Oh, and concerning Lincoln's "resupply" of Fort Sumter that you insist was to involve subsistence only for Anderson's men, and not reinforcements......

[Me] Troops, gentlemen. Lincoln sent troops, after telling Governor Pickens he wasn't doing any such thing.

[You, dissembling] Read the letter again. Supplies only, if not opposed. Troops and supplies if opposed.

Yeah, really? The envelope, please. Let's look at Lincoln's actual orders, written by General Scott and endorsed by Lincoln personally:

March 29, 1861
To the Secretary of the Navy
I desire that an expedition, to move by sea be go ready to sail as early as the 6th of April next, the whole according to memorandum attached: and that you co-operate with the Secretary of War for that object.
Signed: Abraham Lincoln
[Attached memorandum]
From the Navy, three ships of war, the Pocahontas, the Pawnee and the Harriet Lane; and 300 seamen, and one month's stores.
From the War Department, 200 men, ready to leave garrison; and one year's stores.
April 1, 1861 by General Scott
April 2, 1861 approved by Abraham Lincoln
To: Brevet Colonel Harvey Brown, U.S. Army
[Second memo of attachment]
April 4, 1861
To: Lieut. Col. H.L. Scott, Aide de Camp
This will be handed to you by Captain G.V. Fox, an ex-officer of the Navy. He is charged by authority here, with the command of an expedition (under cover of certain ships of war) whose object is, to reinforce Fort Sumter.
To embark with Captain Fox, you will cause a detachment of recruits, say about 200, to be immediately organized at fort Columbus, with competent number of officers, arms, ammunition, and subsistence, with other necessaries needed for the augmented garrison at Fort Sumter.
Signed: Winfield Scott

[Emphasis supplied]

Further notes: Fort Columbus (now renamed Fort Jay) was located on Governor's Island in New York Harbor. Also, it is worth noting that Forts Moultrie, and afterward, were in regular supply from the Charleston economy and that Anderson's men were in no need of supplies such as were carried by the flotilla from New York ordered out by Lincoln on March 29th.

The Confederate authorities, learning of the mission, then halted supplies to Fort Sumter on April 7th.

The mission was a catspaw, pure and simple.