In a letter to his son on April 19, Architect of the Capitol Thomas U. Soon Washington was teeming with soldiers, thousands making their camp in and around the Capitol. Longtime Senate doorkeeper Isaac Bassett described the arrival of these embattled troops: They established their camp in the Senate Chamber. Having encountered angry mobs of Southern sympathizers in Baltimore, the Massachusetts soldiers arrived in Washington on April 19 bloodied and exhausted. The next to arrive was the Sixth Regiment from Massachusetts. Within a few days the road to Washington was opened, but the men who answered the call were not soldiers, but citizens, badly armed, and without drill or discipline.” The first Union troops, volunteers from Pennsylvania, arrived in Washington on April 18 and were quartered in the House wing of the Capitol.

Every city and hamlet had its flag-raising.” Senator John Sherman of Ohio later described this impressive reaction in his memoirs: “The response of the loyal states to the call of Lincoln was perhaps the most remarkable uprising of a great people in the history of mankind. As one journalist recorded, Lincoln’s proclamation “was received with the beating of drums and the ringing notes of the bugle, calling the defenders of the capitol to their colors. The response across the North to the president’s call was swift.

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