It might be useful to consider what the Confederates might have been concerned about when informed that the Sumter expedition was coming. Could they trust Lincoln's word that there would be no attempt to reinforce the fort if the South allowed the Union to resupply it? Would Lincoln use the occasion to inject 200 men and supplies for a year into the fort even if the South had allowed Lincoln to supply the fort with food?
The South Carolina governor had previously been told by Lincoln's agent Lamon that the fort would be evacuated. Seward had told the Confederate Commissioners in Washington much the same thing. Then suddenly here is this fleet of warships coming South.
The Confederate Commissioners said the following as they were leaving Washington [Source: New Orleans Daily Picayune, April 13, 1861]:
Washington, April 11. -- The Southern Commissioners charge the Administration with gross perfidy in attempting to reinforce Fort Sumter under pretext of evacuation.
They say the Montgomery Government earnestly desires peace. They return convinced that war is inevitable, saying the responsibility rests on the Administration.
I can imagine what would happen if I ignored a rattlesnake's warning rattle and came to close to it. It might bite me, but I couldn't really claim that I was just going to pet it while holding a pistol behind my back and it was the rattlesnake who initiated the hostilities.
Now for a quote from the (Republican press) New York Times in their April 12th edition:
Sumpter [sic] on the one side and the Fleet off the North Channel on the other, will effectively cover any relieving expedition, whether of open boats, tugs, or small vessels, from any maritime attack, and confine all resisting operations to the land batteries. Experience has shown -- as in the case of Gen. WILKINSON’S passage down the St. Lawrence during the last war [the Mexican War doesn’t count as a war in the Times view?], with five hundred boats, suffering but a trifling loss, in the face of strong shore batteries – that batteries cannot effectually prevent the passage of an armament. Still less can be done when the batteries themselves will be exposed to such a terrific fire as Major ANDERSON can for some hours at least, pour with his whole force on Moultrie and the battery near Cummings' Point, the only two places from which boats or light draft vessels can be fired upon to any purpose.
But ANDERSON’S fire will not be the only one to which Moultrie may be exposed, as the smaller vessels can take with impunity positions from which shell may be thrown with great effect. No matter how brave or skillful the Southern troops may be, they will be under a fire which will render the entire stoppage of relief to Fort Sumpter [sic] nearly impossible.
A storm prevented Northern ships from crossing over the Charleston bar and dispersed the Northern tugs that were to take in supplies.
Then the Times said the following:
… Why the Southern Commander, be he JEFFERSON DAVIS or Gen. BEAUREGARD, has delayed pouring on Sumpter [sic] his full force, and crushing it beneath an iron hail, if he could; why he has waited until, instead of concentrating his fire in security on one small point, he now has to defend a long straggling line [ten miles of shoreline], from a powerful fleet, it is impossible to tell. The reason may have been political; it may have been that there was not the vaunted readiness; it may have been incompetency; and it is not impossible that when the yawning abyss opened before them with all its horror, they may have lacked the insane courage required for the final leap.
The Times question shows a lack of understanding of Southern intentions. IMO, if the South had wanted war, they would have struck long before the North was ready just as the Times said and not waited until the Northern fleet was already on the way. The South had Commissioners in Washington trying to negotiate peace until the last moment. They were lied to by the Lincoln administration about the evacuation of Sumter and not officially received by Lincoln.
Early in April the attention of the whole country, as well as that of our commissioners, was attracted to extraordinary preparations for an extensive military and naval expedition in New York and other Northern ports. These preparations commenced in secrecy, for an expedition whose destination was concealed, only became known when nearly completed, and on the 5th, 6th, and 7th of April transports and vessels of war with troops, munitions, and military supplies sailed from-Northern ports bound southward.
Alarmed by so extraordinary a demonstration, the commissioners requested the delivery of an answer to their official communication of the 12th of March; and thereupon received on the 8th of April a reply, dated on the 15th of the previous month, from which it appears that during the whole interval, whilst the commissioners were receiving assurances calculated to inspire hope of the success of their mission, the Secretary of State and the President of the United States had already determined to hold no intercourse with them whatever; to refuse even to listen to any proposals they had to make, and had profited by the delay created by their own assurances in order to prepare secretly the means for effective hostile operations.
That these assurances were given has been virtually confessed by the Government of the United States by its sending a messenger to Charleston to give notice of its purpose to use force if opposed in its intention of supplying Fort Sumter. No more striking proof of the absence of good faith in the conduct of the Government of the United States toward this Confederacy can be required than is contained in the circumstances which accompanied this notice.
According to the usual course of navigation the vessels composing the expedition designed for the relief of Fort Sumter might be expected to reach Charleston Harbor on the 8th of April. Yet, with our commissioners actually in Washington, detained under assurances that notice should be given of any military movement, the notice was not addressed to them, but a messenger was sent to Charleston to give the notice to the Governor of South Carolina, and the notice was so given at a late hour on the 8th of April, the eve of the very day on which the fleet might be expected to arrive.
That this maneuver failed in its purpose was not the fault of those who contrived it. A heavy tempest delayed the arrival of the expedition and gave time to the commander of our forces at Charleston to ask and receive the instructions of this Government. Even then, under all the provocation incident to the contemptuous refusal to listen to our commissioners, and the tortuous course of the Government of the United States, I was sincerely anxious to avoid the effusion of blood, and directed a proposal to be made to the commander of Fort Sumter, who had avowed himself to be nearly out of provisions, that we would abstain from directing our fire on Fort Sumter if he would promise not to open fire on our forces unless first attacked.
This proposal was refused and the conclusion was reached that the design of the United States was to place the besieging force at Charleston between the simultaneous fire of the fleet and the fort. There remained, therefore, no alternative but to direct that the fort should at once be reduced.
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With this passage, you can see that the men of the Confederacy were astounded at the disingenuous people in the Oval office, and their unprecedented unwillingness to employ honesty and forthrightness in dealing with the entire situation. Trusted with the oaths of their office, the spirit of the Constitution, and the stature of their positions, they withheld, misrepresented, misdirected, and cloaked their actions in secrecy. This was not the government that the people deserved.
Not only did the Confederacy not know the limits of Lincoln's actions, for all they knew, a massive invasion was about to occur. Thus, firing on Ft. Sumter was a preemptive strike to abort invasion.
The Confederacy knew it was being pushed into firing on Union troops, but knew that falling back at Charleston would require the same tactic at Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, Richmond, and Birmingham.
The only honest political leaders in the situation were Jefferson Davis, who asked for Union cooperation both at the Presidential level as well as at Major Anderson's level, and Anderson himself.
Nonsense, and you know it.
South Carolina's Governor Pickens had been demanding Fort Sumter's surrender since December 1860, and Jefferson Davis first ordered preparations to assault Sumter on March 3 the day before Lincoln's inauguration.
So there's no "concern" to "consider".
Confederates unlawfully demanded Sumter's surrender, and after careful evaluations, both Presidents, Buchanan and Lincoln, refused.
So Confederates started war, and reaped the immediate benefit of four new states (Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas & Tennessee), doubling their population.
rustbucket quoting: "Washington, April 11. -- The Southern Commissioners charge the Administration with gross perfidy in attempting to reinforce Fort Sumter under pretext of evacuation."
Those Confederate commissioners deserved all the same respect and consideration that police provide bank robbers in a hostage situation.
rustbucket: "The South had Commissioners in Washington trying to negotiate peace until the last moment.
They were lied to by the Lincoln administration about the evacuation of Sumter and not officially received by Lincoln."
First, see my comment above.
Second, on March 3 Davis ordered preparations to assault Fort Sumter, and on March 6 to raise a Confederate army of 100,000 troops.
It's not surprising that these took time, during which Confederates doubtless welcomed the illusion that Lincoln intended to surrender Sumter.
But Lincoln was not going to trade something (Sumter) for nothing (nothing).
What Lincoln wanted in return was a promise by Virginians not to secede -- Lincoln said: a fort for a state is a good trade.
But Virginians would make no such promise, and so Lincoln did what little he could (resupply) to hold his fort.
Once their illusions were lifted, and their preparations completed, Confederates did what they intended to do from the beginning: start Civil War.