“Porter opened fire on those ships. He did so with no knowledge of events in Charleston. If you read his memoirs, he does indeed claim to have fired the first shot of the war.”
Hmmmm....
“In April 1861, while under the command of Lt. David Dixon Porter, she assisted in the relief of Fort Pickens, Florida. President Abraham Lincoln had attempted to countermand the order sending the Powhatan to Fort Pickens and send the ship to assist in the relief expedition to Fort Sumter instead, but because Secretary of State William H. Seward signed the order “Seward” rather than “Lincoln,” the order was not obeyed.” - Wiki, USS Powhatan
“On January 10, 1861, the day Florida declared its secession from the Union, Slemmer destroyed over 20,000 pounds of gunpowder at Fort McRee. He then spiked the guns at Fort Barrancas, and moved his small force of 51 soldiers and 30 sailors to Fort Pickens. On January 15, 1861 and January 18, 1861, Slemmer refused surrender demands from Colonel William Henry Chase of the Florida militia. Chase had designed and constructed the fort as a captain in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Slemmer defended the fort against threat of attack until he was reinforced and relieved in April 11, 1861 by Colonel Harvey Brown and the USS Brooklyn. “ - Wiki, Ft Pickens
Then, on January 15, soldiers from Florida and Alabama demanded the surrender of Fort Pickens. Lieutenant Slemmer refused. On January 28, 1861, a truce was reached that stated that the South would not attack and Fort Pickens would not be reinforced.
By the time Lincoln took office in March, both Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, and Fort Pickens, needed supplies. In his inaugural address Lincoln had pledged to continue to occupy federal property in the seceded states. If he withdrew the garrisons at those forts it would mean he officially recognized the Confederacy and its right to occupy those posts; if, on the other hand, he supplied the forts, he risked war.
The Union did send ships filled with supplies and reinforcements from Fort Monroe, Virginia, to Fort Pickens, but under terms of the truce they dared not land. For 10 weeks, the Union’s ships with blue coated soldiers aboard lay at anchor near Fort Pickens, while inside the fort, fearful of a surprise assault on the island, Lieutenant Slemmer kept his command on full alert. The Confederates had in fact planned such a surprise attack, but bad weather delayed them until the 12th of April. Then, before they could get under way, they learned that South Carolina forces had opened fire on Fort Sumter. The civil war so many had feared for so long became a reality.
Soon more Union ships with supplies and troops arrived off Fort Pickens. By the summer of 1861, the fort was still firmly under Union control, and the Union navy blockaded Pensacola’s harbor. Colonel Harvey Brown, now in command of Fort Pickens, and his thousand or more soldiers strengthened the island’s defenses by building gun emplacements, mounting guns, drilling, and moving supplies from ships to the fort.
https://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/38pickens/38facts1.htm
Porter went to Pensacola with the intent to start the war. He did so with hand carried secret orders hand written by Lincoln himself.
Look up *THAT* information.