[DiogenesLamp]

When they attempted to resupply a federal fort...

I just wanted to acquaint you with the cargo ship "USS Pawnee."

Here's another angle.

Lots of room for cargo, the guns hardly get in the way at all.

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Here is a picture of another cargo ship they sent called "Thomas Freeborn."

Here is a scene from the deck of the Cargo ship "USS Pocahontas.

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I don't know why those confederates were getting upset. It was just a bunch of supply ships setting up at the entrance to Charleston harbor.

There were five more "Cargo Ships" sent on this "resupply" mission, of which I think only one wasn't carrying cannon. (at that time. It was armed later.)

Unfortunately we can only find what pictures we can find, but we can get the armament and crew stats of the other "Cargo" ships from records.

[Bull Snipe]

“Here is a picture of another cargo ship they sent called “Thomas Freeborn”
You know damned good and well, the last photo is of a tug boat that did not participate in the Sumter resupply effort. You identified it to me as an 1863 photograph a couple of threads ago.
Nothing in the Navy ORs indicate that any of the civilian ships chartered for the Sumter resupply effort were armed.

[Bull Snipe]

more drivel, USS Pawnee is not a cargo ship. She was a warship of the United States Navy. You know that, why post falsehoods.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp #588: "I don't know why those confederates were getting upset.
It was just a bunch of supply ships setting up at the entrance to Charleston harbor."

implied </sarcasm>

Bull Snipe #606: "Davis ordered Beauregard to reduce the fort by force if necessary before the resupply mission arrived."

DiognenesLamp #608: "reasonable man would believe that when the President sends 8 Ships, at least half of them armed warships, it means he is going to use those ships.
One does not ordinarily pull out a gun and threaten someone unless they mean to do something.
What were those warships going to do?
What were the Confederates led to believe they were going to do?

All that is irrelevant, and DiogenesLamp well knows why.
The fact is that Davis had long since ordered Beauregard & Bragg to take Forts Sumter & Pickens, by force if necessary.
Davis' orders were not contingent on Lincoln's resupply mission, but only on the Confederate generals' preparations to use force.
Naturally, Davis preferred the forts surrender without a fight, but he was prepared to fight & win if necessary.
All of which renders who-fired-what-shots-when irrelevant.
The fact is Confederates intended to seize Federal properties wherever possible and outgoing President Buchanan had announced in early February that Sumter & Pickens would be defended & not surrendered under any circumstances.
Lincoln at first had second thoughts, but eventually decided Buchanan was right and so ordered resupply missions.
Davis used Lincoln's mission as his excuse to start war, but the fact is once Buchanan announced in February the forts would be defended and Davis decided they must be taken, war was coming, period.

Sure, Lost Causers like to argue that magically property changed ownership when a new government took over, but there's no law anywhere in the world which says such a thing, it's just another LC fantasy.

Bottom line on the Doubleday/Fox/Lincoln resupply mission: it was intended for Union warships to remain offshore and resupply Fort Sumter in small boats, under cover of darkness and/or fog.
It was a good plan with every chance of success but required Maj. Anderson to hold out another couple of days, until Beauregard's ammunition ran out and conditions at sea were just right.

Had Lincoln's resupply mission proved successful, events may well have played out differently, impossible to say now.