remark is attributed to Lincoln:  “We must not forget that the people of the seceded States, like those of the loyal States, are American citizens with essentially the same characteristics and powers.  Exceptional advantages on one side are counterbalanced by exceptional advantages on the other.  We must make up our minds that man for man the soldier from the South will be a match for the soldier from the North, and vice versa.”  This was good common sense, seasonably offsetting the prevalent but foolish notion that the Southerners were naturally a better fighting race than the Northerners.  Facts ultimately sustained Lincoln’s just estimate of equality; for though the North employed far greater numbers than did the South, it was because the North had the burdens of attack and conquest upon exterior lines of great extent, because it had to detail large bodies of troops for mere garrison and quasi-police duty, and because during the latter part of the war it took miserable throngs of bounty-bought foreigners into its ranks.  Man for man, as Lincoln said at the outset, the war proved that Northern Americans and Southern Americans were closely matched.[134]

By the same instrument the President summoned Congress to assemble in extra session on July 4.  It seemed a distant date; and many thought that the Executive Department ought not to endeavor to handle alone all the possible novel developments of so long a period.  But Mr. Lincoln had his purposes.  By July 4 he and circumstances, together, would have wrought out definite conditions, which certainly did not exist at present; perhaps also, like most men who find themselves face to face with difficult practical affairs, he dreaded the conclaves of the law-makers; but especially he wished to give Kentucky a chance to hold a special election for choosing members of this Congress, because the moral and political value of Kentucky could hardly be overestimated, and the most tactful manoeuvring was necessary to control her.

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