How do civil wars start?

I've always been fascinated by the ways huge wars actually start. Recently I've been looking at the shots fired at Fort Sumter that started the U.S. Civil War.

After the election of 1860, South Carolina passed a law seceding from the Union. By February of the next year, six more states had joined South Carolina. However, the remaining eight slave states--including Virginia--rejected pleas to join the Confederacy.

By Lincoln's inauguration (March 4th, 1861) Confederate forces had seized all but four Federal forts within their boundaries (they did not take Fort Sumter). In his inaugural address Lincoln declared he had no intent to invade Southern states, nor did he intend to end slavery in states where it already was legal, but that he would use force to recover federal property--apparently a reference to the captured forts.

The South sent delegations to Washington D.C., offering to pay for the federal properties and enter into a peace treaty with the United States. However, Lincoln rejected any negotiations on the grounds that the Confederacy was not a legitimate government, and that making any treaty with it would be tantamount to recognition of it as a sovereign government.

There seems to have been some discussion among Confederate leaders as to how aggressively the forts still in federal hands—including Fort Sumter—should be obtained. The president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, preferred that his side not be seen as the aggressor. Both sides believed that the first side to use force would lose precious political support in the crucial border states, whose allegiance was still undetermined.

By April 4, Lincoln had been informed that supplies in the fort were running short. Accordingly, he ordered merchant vessels to Charleston under Navy escort. On April 6, Lincoln notified South Carolina Governor Francis W. Pickens that "an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only, and that if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition will be made without further notice, [except] in case of an attack on the fort."

Three days later the Confederate cabinet, meeting in Montgomery, decided to try to force the surrender of the fort before the relief fleet arrived. Confederate Secretary of State Robert Toombs strongly opposed this decision, reportedly telling Jefferson Davis the attack "will lose us every friend at the North. You will only strike a hornet's nest. ... Legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary. It puts us in the wrong. It is fatal."

The Confederate Secretary of War telegraphed Beauregard that if he were certain that the fort was to be re-supplied, "You will at once demand its evacuation, and if this is refused proceed...to reduce it." On April 11th Beauregard issued the ultimatum to Anderson. Though Anderson knew he had little food and ammunition, he refused.

Further discussions proved futile, and at 3:20 a.m., April 12, 1861, the Confederates told Anderson they would open fire in one hour. At 4:30 a.m. a mortar round fired from Fort Johnson exploded over Fort Sumter, marking the start of a bombardment that would last 39 hours.

Surprisingly, there was no loss of life on either side as a direct result of this exchange of fire. Nevertheless, Lincoln would later use the rounds fired first by the Confederate guns as a rallying cry to raise a northern army that would ultimately defeat the southern forces.

Hindsight, of course, is 20/20. Even so, one is amazed at the...um, shortsightedness of many of the players in this drama. Even the normally-insightful Lincoln seems to have succumbed: Refusing to negotiate with Confederate representatives on the grounds that the Confederacy wasn't a legitimate government?? This sounds like the formulaic response of a bureaucrat: "Do you have your accreditation credentials from your government? No? Well then, we won't negotiate with you."

And the failure of the members of the Confederate cabinet to understand that firing the first shot would indeed--as the prescient Robert Toombs predicted--be tantamount to "striking a hornet's nest" is beyond sad. One wonders if anyone was listening to his prediction.

The relevance for us today is that the margin between peace and 400,000 dead is sometimes very hard to see.