Which was a given. You keep trying to ignore the fact that opposition was guaranteed, and therefore the orders required an attack.
You don't want to admit that Lincoln started the war when he sent those warships with their defacto orders to began an assault against the Confederates who were blocking them.
Mercer was to take command and lead the response in force. Unknown to the rest of the fleet, Mercer had been secretly relieved of command, and his warship had been placed under the command of Lieutenant Porter who's instructions, based on his efforts, appeared to have been "deliberately start a war" in Pensacola.
Two different plans to start the same war, and you just want to pretend this is all accidental, or a misunderstanding.
Diogeneslamp: ***”You don’t want to admit that Lincoln started the war when he sent those warships with their defacto orders to began an assault against the Confederates who were blocking them.”***
Except that regardless of how hard you try to spin it, sending ships to resupply you troops in their own fort, ships with orders saying “no first use of force*, that is not an act of war, ever.
By contrast, firing on troops to force their surrender, that is an act of war, always.
So you can post “Lincoln tricked Davis” all you want, but the fact is Lincoln wasn’t that smart and Davis wasn’t that stupid.
Both knew exactly what they were doing.