What I have here is proof that Beauregard did not fire at Fort Sumter without being provoked to do so by a well armed military force...and it was the fleet who fired first...albeit at an innocent commerical craft.

To the Secretary of War,

"we were in momentary expectation of an attempt to re-enforce Fort Sumter, or of a descent upon our coast to that end from the United States fleet THEN lying at the entrance of the harbor, it was manifestly an imperative necessity to reduce the fort as speedily as possible, and not to wait until the ships and the fort should unite in a combined attack upon us." Beauregard.

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David Upton