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.
If he was hoping to provoke a war then why would he make it clear that had the South not intervened then only food and supplies would be landed? Wouldn't he have just thrown men and munitions in along with the supplies if his intent was to provoke a war? By clearly differentiating one from the other it looks more like the act of a man who is leaving the question of peace or war in the hands of Jefferson Davis.
Sumter was short of food, that is indisputable. The confederate intent was to starve it into surrender and change the balance. Lincoln's intent was to maintain the status quo. Which is more peaceful?