By mid to late April 1861, Washington, D.C., was on edge. On April 14, Fort Sumter had just fallen to Confederate forces, plunging the nation into civil war. The next day, Abraham Lincoln, in office for just six weeks, had called upon the states to enlist 75,000 volunteers to put down the insurrection.
When Virginia voted to secede on April 17, Lincoln recognized that the nation’s capital was in immediate danger from Virginia to the west and south and from a significant pro-secession population in Maryland to the north and east. The enemy surrounded the federal seat of government.
President Lincoln begged for troops to reinforce the capital’s minimal defenses. Several militia regiments, including five companies from Pennsylvania, followed by militia regiments from Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island, were soon on their way…