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WHAT DID THEY FIGHT OVER?
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Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina was not occupied on 20 Dec 1860 when South Carolina seceded. Major Robert Anderson moved his garrison from Fort Moultrie to Sumter on 26 Dec 1860. The South Carolinians protested and requested Anderson move back to Moultrie. In Jan 1861 the South Carolinians fired on a ship as it approached the fort. The ship turned back and President James Buchanan took no hostile action. So as not to provide an excuse to reinforce the fort, the South Carolinians allowed Anderson's garrison to purchase food in Charleston. This continued until April when Lincoln dispatched ships with additional men and arms to Fort Sumter . Secretary of State William Seward had advised:
"If it were possible to peaceably provision Fort Sumter, of course, I should answer that it would be both unwise and inhuman not to attempt it. But the facts of the case are known to be that the attempt must be made with the employment of military and marine force which would provoke combat and probably initiate a civil war which the Government of the United States would be committed to maintain, through all changes, to some definite conclusion.... Suppose the expedition successful, we have then a garrison in Fort Sumter that can defy assault for six months. What is it to do then? Is it to make war by opening its batteries to demolish the defenses of the Carolinians? Can it demolish them if it tries? If it cannot, what is the advantage we shall have gained? If it can, how will it check or prevent disunion? In either case, it seems to me, that we will have inaugurated a civil war by our own act, without an adequate object, after which reunion will be hopeless, at least under this Administration or in any other way than by a popular disavowal both of the war and of the Administration which unnecessarily commenced it. Fraternity is the element of union; war the very element of disunion."
Seward misunderstood Lincoln's intentions and communicated to the confederates that Sumter would be abandoned. When that was followed by news of the expedition, Jefferson Davis suspected treachery, took the bait and ordered the attack on Sumter. His Secretary of State Robert Toombs saw the trap:
"firing on Fort Sumter would inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has ever seen. ... it is suicide, it is murder, and it will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from the mountains to the ocean; and legions, now quiet, will swarm out to sting us to death. ... It is unnecessary, it puts us in the wrong. It is fatal."
As the first ship arrived outside the harbor, the confederates fired on the fort (at no loss of life) forcing its surrender and evacuation. Oliver Hickman Browning, a personal and political friend of Lincoln, entered in his diary: "He [Lincoln] told me that ... He himself conceived the idea, and proposed sending supplies, without an attempt to reinforce giving notice of the fact to Gov. Pickens of S.C. The plan succeeded. They attacked Sumter - it fell, and thus did more service than it otherwise could."
The attack on Fort Sumter energized northern support for military action. The rebels had attacked the flag which was publically displayed. Lincoln avoided a congressional war debate by appealing directly to the state governors to provide 75,000 militia with a three month enlistment. The generals had estimated that would be all required to subdue the south. See the U. S. Grant quote on this page.
