That definition leads a lot of room for subjectivity. The side that fires first will always argue that its actions were constrained or forced upon it by the enemy. If some group starts a hostage situation and you do something that gets them shooting, it doesn't follow that you started the war. I'd say you have to look at legal rights and principles, not simply say that the side which makes the last move before the other side starts shooting "started" the war.
When he was informed that the Sumter expedition was coming, Anderson wrote that the coming expedition was the start of the war.
I had heard that about Major Anderson, though I can't find the quote right now. I do find a reference to Adam Goodheart's recent book arguing that the war really "began" on December 26th 1860 when Anderson moved his force to Sumter and raised the flag. Or maybe it "began" when Buchanan sent the Star of the West to resupply the fort. Or maybe it began on January 9th, 1861 when that ship was fired on. I'll stick with the usual answer: the war began on April 12th, 1861 when the fort was attacked.
On the theory that Lincoln somehow tricked or manipulated the Confederates into firing the first shot: It was a stand-off situation of the kind we are now familiar with. The important thing in the Northern debate was not to back down, as the free states' leaders were presumed to have done in 1820 and 1850 and in subsequent crises and upheavals. That was the primary question -- to back down, compromise, concede, or not. Lincoln decided to stand firm. He also decided not to fire the first shot. He was pretty up-front in his inaugural address:
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
So there you have it. Lincoln put the matter in the Confederates' or rebels' hands. Was he disingenuous? Was he secretly hoping for war? I don't know what was going through his mind, and I can't prove a negative. I can't prove that the idea of hoping or wanting that the other side would start a war never ever crossed his mind.
But I will ask, wanted a war compared to whom or to what? Did Lincoln want a war more than Davis or the South Carolinians who proclaimed the Revolution of 1860? Did he want a war more than a peaceful resolution of the conflict or a back-down by his adversaries? Did he want a crushing war more than other presidents who've been in similar stand-off situations since the founding of the republic?
Compare Lincoln, Davis, and Pickens in 1861 to Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro in 1962, and it's not certain that Lincoln comes out the worse. How much of the idea of Lincoln tricking or manipulating Davis into war to crush the South has to do with the actual situation in 1861, and how much has to do with what actually happened later?
About the Fox quote: David Donald says that Fox was bitter about the failure of the relief expedition and blamed himself for it, and Lincoln was trying to reassure Fox that the action wasn't a total loss. If you read the whole letter it supports that reading. It's certainly possible that what Lincoln was referring to as a positive result of the unsuccessful campaign was the act of staying firm, of taking a stand. Even a defeat could have been regarded in a positive light if seen as the beginning of a new policy of firmness.
About the Hay-Nicolay quote: First, Hay and Nicolay were writing for an audience of Northerners who had lived through the war and had little doubt that the Union was right and the rebels were wrong. There wasn't any need to be cautious and guarded, since the readers would have agreed that the Confederates had started the war. Does that make their account more trustworthy than a more cautious, lawyered-up version written with an eye to winning arguments?
Maybe. Maybe not. Most of the time the "lawyered-up" version is less reliable. But at least it addresses issues that a more naive and unguarded account may not. In the version written for an audience that's always going to accept and admire one's story, there are temptations to play on the audience's emotions or to show off how clever one is and was.
But secondly, the quote as written doesn't necessarily prove that Lincoln was angling for war, just that if war began, it wouldn't be blamed on Lincoln. There's a distinction between setting a scene where war if it comes will have to be started by the other side and forcing the other side to fight. Of course, if you belong to the side that does fire the first shot you might be more than willing to claim that your actions were forced.
Maybe the problem here is that both sides wanted to act as the US often acts -- being firm, not backing down, letting the other side concede. My own view is that if you want to get independence from a government that you belonged to, you don't get arrogant about it. You show a modest, conciliatory spirit and consider a certain amount of deference now the price of full independence later. That's not something the secessionists of 1860 could do. But the results of their bad choice aren't necessarily something one can blame on their opponents.
FWIW, a lot of what gets posted online are anti-Lincoln editorials. Whether we're talking about outright pro-Southern, pro-secessionist newspapers or business papers that oppose any disruption or restriction of commerce, the choice of sources gives a very skewed view of what was happening. Here -- for a change -- is part of an April 11th editorial by the Indianapolis Daily Journal:
The Administration from the beginning has avowed its purpose to do nothing but hold the Government property, neither acknowledging nor attempting to destroy the assumed independence of the rebel States, till authorized by the Nation to do so. This is the policy avowed in the inaugural of Mr. Lincoln, and it has been acted on steadily. This is the policy of prudence and peace, and the policy of good order, and of the supremacy of law.--Mr. Lincoln could neither declare or do less without assuming the right to allow a State to secede at will, and that right clearly belongs only to the people who formed the Union. But the peace policy is to end in war. Why? Not because it assails anybody. Not because it coerces anybody. But because the seceding States are determined to have war; because they believe a war will drive to their support the border slave States, and unite them all in a great Southern Confederacy. A policy of peace is to them a policy of destruction. It encourages the growth of a reactionary feeling. It takes out of the way all the pride and resentment which could keep the people from feeling the weight of taxation, and the distress of their isolated condition. If forces them to reason, and to look at the consequences of their conduct. A war buries all these considerations in the fury and glory of battle, and the parade and pomp of arms. War will come because the Montgomery Government deems it the best way of bringing the border States, and of keeping down trouble at home.
[you]: That definition leads a lot of room for subjectivity.
That’s true for both sides. I think Lincoln was counting on the South firing on his expedition or on Sumter. With one stroke he was able to get the South to shoot first, get the opportunity to blockade Southern Ports thus negating the difference in tariff rates, and get the backing of the Northern population because of the firing on the flag. He also succeeded or lucked into losing the battle of Fort Sumter, which meant that he didn't have to keep ferrying supplies to Sumter and defending the fort. Remember too that Lincoln had secretly pulled one of the key ships away from the Sumter expedition without alerting Fox and sent it to Fort Pickens. The Sumter expedition was too small to succeed -- far, far smaller than Anderson or Winfield Scott had previously advised would be required.
Years ago I saw this newspaper quote on another web site. I haven’t seen the paper itself, but it does echo my interpretations:
"Mr. Lincoln saw an opportunity to inaugurate civil war without appearing in the character of an aggressor." [Source: Providence Daily Post, April 13 1861].
As I think I alluded to earlier, Lincoln needed to (and did) keep Congress out of the way so he could take actions such as invading the South (Virginia, at least) that committed the country to war. Given the natural patriotic feeling in the North generated by all of this, Congress would have no political will to oppose his actions.
[me]: When he was informed that the Sumter expedition was coming, Anderson wrote that the coming expedition was the start of the war.
[you]: I had heard that about Major Anderson, though I can't find the quote right now. I do find a reference to Adam Goodheart's recent book arguing that the war really "began" on December 26th 1860 when Anderson moved his force to Sumter and raised the flag. Or maybe it "began" when Buchanan sent the Star of the West to resupply the fort. Or maybe it began on January 9th, 1861 when that ship was fired on. I'll stick with the usual answer: the war began on April 12th, 1861 when the fort was attacked.
I believe you and I had a discussion once about what date to use for the start of the war. Here is the Anderson quote [Source, my emphasis below]:
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.
Anderson was not the only one to recognize what Lincoln was doing would start a war. Lincoln on April 5 gave a verbal order to reinforce Fort Pickens without telling the Confederates. He followed this up with a written order. The Confederates and the Union forces in Pensacola were still obeying the truce that had been negotiated between Florida and the Buchanan Administration. The Confederates had promised not to attack Fort Pickens if the Union did not reinforce it. A violation of the truce could result in a shooting war.
When the instruction to reinforce Fort Pickens finally arrived after much delay, the commander of the Union force off Pensacola, Captain Adams, refused to obey the order. Here is what he said at the time [Official Records of the Navies, Series 1, Vol. 4, pages 109-110, my emphasis below]:
… it [reinforcing Fort Pickens] would be considered not only a declaration but an act of war. … While I can not take on myself under such insufficient authority as General Scott's order the fearful responsibility of an act which seems to render civil war inevitable, I am ready at all times to carry out whatever orders I may receive from the honorable Secretary of the Navy.Because of the extensive delay, Lincoln asked Montgomery Meigs to help prepare a secret expedition to reinforce Fort Pickens. The expedition got underway on April 6. Here is what Meigs wrote on board the ship heading to Pensacola with orders to reinforce Fort Pickens in violation of the negotiated truce at that fort [Source, my emphasis below]
This is the beginning of the war which every statesman and soldier has foreseen since the passage of the South Carolina ordinance of secession.
These three key guys recognized at the time that Lincoln was taking actions that could provoke war. Obviously they hadn't gotten the message about who started the war.
The Official Records show that Union forces started reinforcing Fort Pickens on April 11. That was before the South fired on Fort Sumter. So, if Captain Adams was right, the North had already declared war on the South before the attack on Fort Sumter.