Let me see if I can explain my position on the Fort Sumter issue. Major Anderson broke a treaty that was in existence not to move his troops. He did and Lincoln did nothing. A peace delegation was waiting in Washington to meet Lincoln, he refused to meet them. Lincoln was sending an armed armada to relieve Fort Sumter, and let word leak out. He could have let the four states leave and then let events take their course by boycotting the products and stopping imports. He clearly had no intention of making any peace motions. After the firing on Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for troops and declared a war, at this time no man had been killed by hostile fire. Lincoln clearly could have prevented a war if he was so inclined but he chose not to. I fail to see how anyone but Lincoln can shoulder the blame.

I think the people of Charleston just wanted the hostile troops to leave, nothing more, nothing less. I compare this situation with the Cuban missile crisis; Kennedy was ready to start a war to keep a hostile nation from arming themselves and sitting at our back door. Pickens and Beauagard did the same thing. What if Khrushchev had went ahead with plans to build the missile sites, would Kennedy had been right to fire on Soviet ships?

GP