[Illustration: "WAR GOVERNORS" OF THE NORTHERN STATES.]
On Monday, April 15, President Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand militia from the several States "to suppress this combination against the laws, and to cause the laws to be duly executed."
The response to this call was immediate, and within the week some of the troops thus summoned were in Washington.
While forts and arsenals were being seized by the Confederates all over the South, while batteries to reduce Fort Sumter were being constructed and armed, what had been doing at Washington city, the capital of the nation?
DEFENCELESS CONDITION OF WASHINGTON--SECESSION SYMPATHIZERS IN OFFICE--VOLUNTEERS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA--COL. CHARLES P. STONE--PROTECTION OF PUBLIC OFFICES AND GUARDING OF COMMUNICATIONS--UPRISING OF THE PEOPLE--RESPONSE OF THE MILITIA--THE SIXTH MASSACHUSETTS IN BALTIMORE--THE NEW YORK SEVENTH REACHES WASHINGTON--DEATH OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH--SOUTHERN MILITARY AGGRESSION--HARPER'S FERRY CAPTURED--GOSPORT NAVY YARD BURNED AND EVACUATED.
During the interval between the election and the inauguration of President Lincoln, a very alarming condition of affairs existed at the national capital. The administration was in the hands of men who, even those who were not actively disloyal, were not Republicans, and did not desire to assume responsibility for the crisis which the Republican success at the polls had precipitated.
The Government service was honeycombed with secession sentiment, which extended from cabinet officers down to department clerks. Always essentially a city of Southern sympathies, Washington was filled with the advocates of State Rights. The retiring Democratic President, James Buchanan, in addition to a perhaps not unnatural timidity in the face of impending war and a reluctance to embroil his administration in affairs which it properly belonged to the incoming administration to settle, was also torn with conflicting opinions as to the constitutional questions involved, especially as to his power to coerce a sovereign State. Turning to his cabinet for advice, he was easily led to do the things that simplified the Southern preparations to leave the Union.
{ 20} It has been told that the regular army troops had been sent away from Washington, leaving a mere handful of marines on duty there. It became a problem for loyal men to devise means for the maintenance of order at the seat of Government. It being the policy of the Government at that time to do nothing to provoke hostilities, it was deemed unwise to bring regular troops openly into Washington. There was no regularly organized militia there; only a few independent companies of doubtful, or unascertained, loyalty.