“No, he fought it to preserve the Union and because war was the path that Jefferson Davis chose. “
South Carolina fired on Sumter - a fort in their territory that would not stand down and was a direct threat (kind of like Iraq, in that way), but the other Southern states didn’t.
Virginia didn’t secede until Lincoln ordered them to attack the states further south.
Elements of both sides wanted a war.
South Carolina didn't fire on Sumer - a federal fort that did not belong to South Carolina - the confederacy did. As such, it was all the Southern states firing on Sumter and as a result initiating the war. Blaming it all on South Carolina because the firing started there makes no more sense than blaming it all on Lincoln because he insisted on retaining ownership of federal property.
‘Virginia didn’t secede until Lincoln ordered them to attack the states further south.
Elements of both sides wanted a war.’
Yep. And everybody involved thought one grand battle would decide the issue. That mistaken notion played a huge role in the tactics leading up to Gettysburg, and was the one failure of thought you can cite Robert E Lee for in particular.
He was convinced he could win the war via one battle. It influenced both northern ‘invasions’ he managed, and it was the driving force behind the ill advised, and misnamed ‘Pickett’s Charge’ the third day of Gettysburg.
The fact is, even if the ‘charge’ had been successful, the Army of the Potomac would have gotten away, just as they did after Chancellorsville, or on the Penninsula Campaign early in the war, or at Fredricksburg just months before that summer campaign.