Abraham Lincoln accomplished his goal, because Jefferson Davis acted on impulse, not logic. He could have set it out for two days and Sumter would have had to surrender. He was a fool that played into Lincoln’s hand. There was no militarily sound reason for firing on Sumter. Jefferson Davis was outsmarted by Abraham Lincoln and the war that could not be won by the Confederacy was started, by the Confederacy as far as the World community saw it. JMO
I don't disagree that Lincoln outsmarted and out connived Davis. It is quite obvious though that Lincoln started the war. Lincoln’s two wartime secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, put it this way in their book about Lincoln:
President Lincoln in deciding the Sumter question had adopted a simple but effective policy. To use his own words, he determined to "send bread to Anderson"; if the rebels fired on that, they would not be able to convince the world that he had begun the civil war.
A study of Lincoln's actions confirm that. Lincoln had put Davis in a box. If Davis let the expedition proceed to the fort, Lincoln would reinforce the fort (just as General Scott said) despite telling the South he would not reinforce the fort if the South didn't oppose the expedition. And then the South would be stuck with a well manned and supplied fort that could and would shut down the port of Charleston.
Remember this is the man (Lincoln) who lied to the Senate telling them that they could adjourn because he did not have anything important to tell them, yet that same day he had a draft developed of the secret plan to send the expedition to Sumter, the expedition that his cabinet had told him would start a shooting war. Lincoln sent his man Lamon to tell the Governor of South Carolina the fort would be evacuated. His cabinet Secretary of State Seward through an intermediary implied the same thing to the Confederate Commissioners who were in Washington trying to negotiate a peaceful solution to the crisis. Lincoln kept Congress out of session until July 4. During that time he operated without checks and balances unconstitutionally assuming the powers of both Congress and the Judiciary to maneuver the country into war. Despite the common perception that the war began with the attack on Fort Sumter, the US Supreme Court ruled that the war started with Lincoln's April 19th proclamation imposing a blockade on Southern ports, a recognized act of war.
I don't agree with Davis's decision to fire on the fort. I would have let Lincoln try to collect tariff on the high seas from foreign ships importing things to the South. Davis, however, probably recognized that the border states would opt to join the South if he fired on the fort, and they did. Two more state probably would have joined the South, had Lincoln not arrested members of the Maryland legislature and invaded Maryland with armies from Northern states. Similarly, soldiers and militia from Illinois joined homegrown Missouri paramilitary units (Wide Awakes) to overthrow the Missouri state government.
At the same time, Lincoln no doubt recognized that goading the South into firing on the flag would instigate a war fever in the North and generate support for his heretofore floundering government.
It wasn't only at Fort Sumter that Lincoln was working to provoke war. He sent instructions to break a truce that the US government had negotiated with Southerners that the US would not reinforce Fort Pickens and the South would not attack the fort. Breaking a truce without informing the other side was an act of war, which the man (Meigs) who, at Lincoln's instructions developed the plan to reinforce Fort Pickens, recognized. Meigs recognized that breaking the truce meant war. Actually, the reinforcement of Fort Pickens began in the dead of night before the attack on Fort Sumter started. Hostilities would have started at Fort Pickens except that the Confederates only had about a day's worth of ammunition and shells, not enough to take the fort.
Perhaps you are forgetting that Lincoln's armed expedition started arriving off the Charleston bar before or about the time that the ultimatum was delivered to Anderson to surrender the fort. If Anderson could hold out for a couple of more days like he asked for, the whole expedition might have arrived and saved him from surrendering and/or aided in his fight with the Confederates like the New York Times article I linked to above had forecast. I think that is why Anderson asked for the extra two days.
The South knew the expedition was coming, first from leaks from Northern friends, Northern newspaper articles saying something was up and that ships were heading south, and finally a messenger from Lincoln gave a note to the Governor shortly before when the expedition was supposed to arrive. Should the South have waited for two more days for Anderson's allies to arrive so that Anderson could better resist the demand to surrender?
Unfortunately for Lincoln's Sumter expedition, a storm at sea had delayed the expedition and separated its ships. The tugs that were supposed to take supplies in to the fort never made it through the storm. Once all the expedition's ships other than the tugs had arrived (not counting the Powhatan that Lincoln had diverted to Fort Pickens without telling the expedition), the attack on the fort was already underway. And critically, the seas were too rough for them to make it over the Charleston bar to join in the fight. The weather gods had voted in favor of the South.
I'm gone for the rest of the day.