"That ship was carrying food to American soldiers."
For you serious students, the "objective" truth of history means, in essence, a statement of provable fact. Clinging to myth because it pleases one's sensibilities may give the mind a good feeling, but the feeling does not transmute into objective fact. In this case, it turns out as historical fact, that "that ship" was carrying nothing to "American soldiers" garrisoning Fort Sumter. For the simple reason that Lincoln ordered that the Powhatan's captain take the ship to the "American soldiers" at Fort Pickens, knowing that the consequence of the order would mean the Pawnee, Pocahontas and Harriet Lane would not enter Charleston Harbor, though Beauregard, seeing that Union war ships were outside the bar, would not know this and would probably open fire on the fort, an event Lincoln would use to inflame the Northern people sufficiently that they would make their militias available for his use. For those of you actually interested in history, as opposed to myth, read what the percipient witnesses wrote about their involvement in Lincoln's ruse. D.D. Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War; E.D. Keyes, Fifty Years Observation of Men and Events; E.D. Townsend, Anecdotes of he Civil War. For those of you interested only in myth, listen to the popular historians lecture.