The Confederate cabinet was said to have greeted Mr. Lincoln's
proclamation with "bursts of laughter." The governors of Kentucky, North
Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri telegraphed that no troops
would be furnished by their respective States, using language clearly
designed to be offensive and menacing. The Northern States, however,
responded promptly and enthusiastically. Men thronged to enlist.
Hundreds of thousands offered themselves where only 75,000 could be
accepted. Of the human raw material there was excess; but discipline and
equipment could not be created by any measure of mere willingness. Yet
there was great need of dispatch. Both geographically and politically
Washington lay as an advanced outpost in immediate peril. General Scott
had been collecting the few companies within reach; but all, he said on
April 8, "may be too late for this place." By April 15, however, he
believed himself able to hold the city till reinforcements should
arrive. The total nominal strength of the United States army, officers
and men, was only 17,113, of whom not two thirds could be counted upon
the Union side, and even these were scattered over a vast expanse of
country, playing police for Indians, and garrisoning distant posts.
Rumors of Southern schemes to attack Washington caused widespread alarm;
the government had no more definite information than the people, and all
alike feared that there was to be a race for the capital, and that the
South, being near and prepared, would get there first.
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