The firing on Fort Sumter was Beauregards call. It was tactical move not strategic. A few weeks before his orders had changed from "Reduced the Fort" to "Prevent the Fort from reenforcement". He did have one other option, he was a West Point officer in command and new he had the last word in firing on an enemy.

1. Wait for the ships to attempt reenforcement.and force their way through...then fire on them.

But he knew his gunners could not hit moving objects i.e. Star of the West, and the merchant ship a few days before the bombardment. His gunners also were complaining that they were not ready to repel and invasion and wrote of their fears to him the day before. When the ships appeared the only way to carry out his orders was to take the fort first, because he must of believed he wasn't going to stop the ships.

The Star the West didn't seem to bother the North into war.
In hindsight Davis' best option was to let them try to reenforce the fort, if he repelled them... great, if they took it...even better. Fort Pickens then would have and should have been focus of attention instead of Fort Sumter. After that, as General Scott pointed out, in several weeks the whole process would have had to been repeated and by that time South would have had more allies and the North no "Fort Sumter" to rally the North to invade the South.

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David Upton