[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The claim that the South started the war is not "well said."
You just happen to agree with it.
Throw that out, and the rest falls apart."

First, it's important to notice here that DiogenesLamp considers Fort Sumter a key to defending the Confederacy, as he says: "Throw that out, and the rest falls apart."

But the fact is Confederates began committing acts of war against the United States in December 1860, seizing forts (45), arsenals (12), ships (9), mints (3) and other Federal properties across the South.
None of those seizures was "provoked" by Federal actions, and neither was Fort Sumter.
Fort Sumter was simply next on the Confederate list to be seized, and required a larger force because of Union troops in it.

And Fort Sumter was among the first times Confederates encountered serious Union on-site resistance to Confederate aggression.
Finally, Fort Sumter was the first Confederate aggression to provoke the Union to call up military forces to retake what was seized.
That was the military action which, if the Union could be said to have "started war", did it.
But even DiogenesLamp can see you can't label a mere call-up "war" when it is in response to actual Confederate acts of war at Fort Sumter.
So, he must back up another step: what about Lincoln's "war fleet" with orders to "attack Confederates" and "invade the South"??

Of course that's all just nonsense:

1. No "war fleet", a simple resupply mission.
2. No orders to "attack Confederates", rather orders of "no first use of force".
3. No "invasion" because the larger ships were to remain well off-shore while small boats brought supplies to Fort Sumter.
   
4. Even Jefferson Davis himself was not concerned about being seen to start war at Fort Sumter.
   Sure he thought it better to maneuver Lincoln into starting firing first, but in the end that didn't really matter, due to "other considerations", #1 being Virginia.

Of course, in a sense, Confederates did not start war at Fort Sumter, they actually started it months earlier seizing Federal properties, Fort Sumter was merely the first serious Union resistance.

All of which DiogenesLamp well knows, but can't acknowledge because it reduces the rest of his Lost Causer defense to mere rubble.

[DiogenesLamp]

First, it's important to notice here that DiogenesLamp considers Fort Sumter a key to defending the Confederacy, as he says:

Here is someone else trying to speak for me. I do not think Sumter is "key" to defending the Confederacy. What I think is "key" to defending the Confederacy is the Declaration of Independence written "four score and seven years" before.

But the fact is Confederates began committing acts of war against the United States in December 1860, seizing forts (45), arsenals (12), ships (9), mints (3) and other Federal properties across the South.

So your very biased opinion alleges. You don't allow any consideration for their position that the land belongs to the people, and when the people assert independence, the land goes with them.

Fort Sumter was simply next on the Confederate list to be seized, and required a larger force because of Union troops in it.

There were no Union troops in it when South Carolina voted for Independence. They snuck over there in the middle of night in late December of 1860, after spiking all the cannons at Ft. Moultrie and burning their carriages. They had been telling the Confederates that all the forts were to be turned over to them eventually, and when they burned the cannons at fort Moultrie and then took up residence in the unfinished Sumter, the people of South Carolina regarded it as an underhanded backstabbing act of belligerence.

Charlestonians had believed they would be able to engage in greatly increased trade with Europe, and then suddenly they had a pack of belligerent liars with a fort full of cannons able to threaten shipping into and out of their harbor.

No "war fleet", a simple resupply mission.

With F***ing Warships making up the bulk of it. Once again, here is one of your "supply" ships.