Whether Beauregard fired upon the invasion fleet, instead of Fort Sumter, I don't believe would have made any different. The south would have still been protrayed as "firing the first shot of the war" in either case against either target, by the northern press and the Lincoln adminstration.

The reason why the "Star of the West" incident was not elevated to the status of an Act of War was because it happened during the Buchanan adminstration, and not the Lincoln adminstration.

I do not see what advantage the South could have gained by allowing Lincoln to reinforce Fort Sumter without opposition and shifting the focus to Fort Pickens. Any confrontation at either location no matter what the reason, would have been again protrayed as being the South "firing the first shots".

Lincoln's whole purpose for sending reinforcements in the first place was to flex his "military might", the power of the Presidency, as did Andrew Jackson, and threaten the Southern States into giving up their ideas of secession. Had South Carolina folded it hands and NOT oppossed the reinforcement of Fort Sumter, what political signal, as to South Carolina's determination, would that have sent to the other 6 states that had seceded? And would the fledling Confederacy not have fallen apart over that uncertainty?

No, in my opinion the federal occupation of Fort Sumter, and the southern responce to that, was far more important than who controlled the entrance to Charleston harbor. The political impact of appearing to roll over a play dead to the federal power play would have doomed the resolve of the young Confederacy in April 1861.

There was no other place except Sumter.