You want to believe that. The clear truth is that the Confederates were never going to allow those ships to reinforce that fort. Lincoln knew it. His entire cabinet knew it. Major Anderson in Fort Sumter knew it. Everyone in the f***ing world knew it, and so the orders always were going to require the use of force, and it was *GOING* to start a war.
You don't want to believe that Lincoln intentionally started this war, because that runs counter to the beliefs you wish to hold about this being those D@mn slaveowners' fault instead of Saint Lincoln.
Lincoln deliberately started that war. He fully knew and realized this action would trigger that war, and he committed the nation to the bloodshed this war would leave because he needed to control the South's economics and he badly underestimated what was going to happen next.
2 - Lincoln sent a letter to South Carolina. They didn’t need spies because Lincoln didn’t HIDE anything.
Look up Lieutenant David Dixon Porters' secret orders to take command of the Powhatan, which completely paralyzed the strike mission.
Didn' hide anything my @$$!
Had the Confederates known that this mission was in fact a fake mission and those ships never would have attacked, it is quite likely that they would have waited out Anderson and taken the fort without bombarding it.
Lincoln made certain that no one was to know of what the Powhatan was doing because both the Union navy and the Confederates believed it was going to show up in Charleston and take command of the assembled ships of war.
But Lincoln made certain that nobody knew about this little stunt he was pulling, because if everyone knew that nothing was going to happen, the history would have turned out quite different.
You may not know this, but Lincoln was a dirty tricks politician of the most clever sort. If you had read about some of his other stunts he pulled in politics, you wouldn't be at all surprised that he would pull a stunt with the Powhatan that he did.
3 - The South CHOSE to attack. They didn’t have to. They decided to start the war. It isn’t open to discussion. THEY FIRED THE FIRST SHOTS!
Lincoln and Lincoln alone started that war. He did so deliberately and he is the only one that had a motive for starting that war.
He knew full well that sending those ships would cause a war, and he sent those ships because he was absolutely going to have that war he needed to keep economic control over the South. Under no circumstances was normalized trade with Europe ever going to be allowed, because it would destroy his financial backers and wreck the North financially.
You just want to believe the made up bulsh*t we've all been fed ever since birth. You just want to believe the pleasant myth you've been taught, and you have absolutely no interest in seeing events as the really were.
“The clear truth is that the Confederates were never going to allow those ships to reinforce that fort.”
The clear truth is the Confederates STARTED THE WAR.
THEY SHOT FIRST!