Just imagine that your feelings towards Charleston, however justified or not, were shared by many settlers in the US Northwest Territories after 1783, when the Brits promised to evacuate their many forts & posts, but did not.
And British support for Indians there lead directly to arguably the greatest US military disaster of all time: St. Clair's Defeat in 1791 -- a thousand killed only 24 survived.
So what did President Washington do about those British forts?
He sent his Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay, to London in 1794 to negotiate, two years later the British troops withdrew.
Now there's no possible way that Fort Sumter in Charleston could have effects equivalent to those British forts, and yet President Washington found a peaceful way to resolve the issue.
Jefferson Davis, by contrast, had no interest in such a course of action.
Just imagine that your feelings towards Charleston, however justified or not, were shared by many settlers in the US Northwest Territories after 1783, when the Brits promised to evacuate their many forts & posts, but did not.
And British support for Indians there lead directly to arguably the greatest US military disaster of all time: St. Clair’s Defeat in 1791 — a thousand killed only 24 survived.
So what did President Washington do about those British forts?
He sent his Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay, to London in 1794 to negotiate, two years later the British troops withdrew.
Now there’s no possible way that Fort Sumter in Charleston could have effects equivalent to those British forts, and yet President Washington found a peaceful way to resolve the issue.
Jefferson Davis, by contrast, had no interest in such a course of action.
The Northwest Frontier was a backwater rather than one of the nation’s principal harbors. Also the British did not send a heavily armed flotilla to reinforce the garrison. Lincoln did.