"
The attack on Sumter placed upon the administration the duty of
organising at once for the contest now inevitable the forces of the
country. This work of organisation came at best but late because those
who were fighting to break up the nation had their preparations well
advanced. The first call for troops directed the governors of the loyal
States to supply seventy-five thousand men for the restoration of the
authority of the government. Massachusetts was the first State to
respond by despatching to the front, within twenty-four hours of the
publication of the call, its Sixth Regiment of Militia; the Seventh of
New York started twenty-four hours later. The history of the passage of
the Sixth through Baltimore, of the attack upon the columns, and of the
deaths, in the resulting affray, of soldiers and of citizens has often
been told. When word came to Washington that Baltimore was obstructing
the passage of troops bound southward, troops called for the defence of
the capital, the isolation of the government became sadly apparent. For
a weary and anxious ten days, Lincoln and his associates were dreading
from morning to morning the approach over the long bridge of the troops
from Virginia whose camp-fires could be seen from the southern windows
of the White House, and were looking anxiously northward for the arrival
of the men on whose prompt service the safety of the capital was to
depend.
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