[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Major Anderson himself realizes that what Lincoln is doing is a lying backstab on a agreement/truce/understanding."

Unionist Anderson was a pro-slavery former slave-owner from Kentucky.
He was sympathetic to the South and did not want war, though when war came he chose the Union.

Here's what's wrong with your argument:

1. All Confederate seizures of dozens of Federal properties -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc. -- were illegal, rebellious and provocations for war.
   The fact that outgoing Doughfaced Democrat President Buchanan did nothing to stop them in no way made those seizures legitimate.

2. All Confederate threats against Union officials and demands for surrender of forts, troops or other assets were illegal.

3. All "agreements" made under duress by threatened Union officials had no legal standing.

4. All claims that President Lincoln had promised anything to any Confederate are false, except in the context of his negotiations with Virginia unionists to prevent Virginia's secession convention from declaring secession.
   In those negotiations Lincoln effectively offered "a fort (Sumter) for a state (Virginia)".
   But Virginians refused Lincoln's offer, and so it was withdrawn.

5. The fact that Confederates carried out their previously threatened assault on Fort Sumter after Lincoln sent resupply ships, in no way makes Lincoln's actions the "cause" of war.

Finally, the analogy is almost exact between Lincoln sending ships to Fort Sumter in 1861, and President Roosevelt ordering the US fleet to Pearl Harbor in 1940.
In both cases there were warnings the move could "provoke" an enemy attack, warnings the president ignored.
But we never blame FDR for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and should never blame Lincoln for the assault on Fort Sumter.

[DiogenesLamp]

Unionist Anderson was a pro-slavery former slave-owner from Kentucky.

You are going to try to impugn his statement by linking him to slavery? Are you so desperate then that you assert Lincoln's commander at Ft. Sumter was on the other side somehow?

Is his statement so dangerous to your fragile beliefs that you must besmirch his character to allow yourself to disregard what he said?

I think a nerve has been struck.

Yes, were I you, arguing *your* set of facts, I should very much like to find an excuse to dismiss the observation of Lincoln's own man, when that man makes it clear that Lincoln is at fault for starting the conflict.

That statement by Major Anderson is a smoking gun. If a Union Army officer who was defending the Fort on behalf of the Union says that Lincoln deliberately provoked the war, then you pretty much have no where else to go in denying it.

I had the honor to receive by yesterday’s mail the letter of the honorable Secretary of War, dated April 4, and confess that what he there states surprises me very greatly…I trust that this matter will be at once put in a correct light, as a movement made now, when the South has been erroneously informed that none such will be attempted, would produce most disastrous results throughout our country. It is, of course, now too late for me to give any advice in reference to the proposed scheme of Captain Fox. I fear that its result cannot fail to be disastrous to all concerned...

I ought to have been informed that this expedition was to come. Colonel Lamon’s remark convinced me that the idea, merely hinted at to me by Captain Fox, would not be carried out. We shall strive to do our duty, though I frankly say that my heart is not in the war which I see is to be thus commenced. That God will still avert it, and cause us to resort to pacific measures to maintain our rights, is my ardent prayer.