Throughout this crisis President Lincoln not only maintained his composure, but promptly assumed the high responsibilities the occasion demanded.  On Sunday, April 21, he summoned his cabinet to meet at the Navy Department, and with their unanimous concurrence issued a number of emergency orders relating to the purchase of ships, the transportation of troops and munitions of war, the advance of $2,000,000 of money to a Union Safety Committee in New York, and other military and naval measures, which were despatched in duplicate by private messengers over unusual and circuitous routes.  In a message to Congress, in which he afterward explained these extraordinary transactions, he said: 

“It became necessary for me to choose whether, using only the existing means, agencies, and processes which Congress had provided, I should let the government fall at once into ruin, or whether, availing myself of the broader powers conferred by the Constitution in cases of insurrection, I would make an effort to save it with all its blessings for the present age and for posterity.”

Unwelcome as was the thought of a possible capture of Washington city, President Lincoln’s mind was much more disturbed by many suspicious indications of disloyalty in public officials, and especially in officers of the army and navy.  Hundreds of clerks of Southern birth employed in the various departments suddenly left their desks and went South.  The commandant of the Washington navy-yard and the quartermaster-general of the army resigned their positions to take service under Jefferson Davis.  One morning the captain of a light battery on which General Scott had placed special reliance for the defense of Washington came to the President at the White House to asseverate and protest his loyalty and fidelity; and that same night secretly left his post and went to Richmond to become a Confederate officer.

The most prominent case, however, was that of Colonel Robert E. Lee, the officer who captured John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, and who afterward became the leader of the Confederate armies.  As a lieutenant he had served on the staff of General Scott in the war with Mexico.  Personally knowing his ability, Scott recommended him to Lincoln as the most suitable officer to command the Union army about to be assembled under the President’s call for seventy-five regiments; and this command was informally tendered him through a friend.  Lee, however, declined the offer, explaining that “though opposed to secession, and deprecating war, I could take no part in an invasion of the Southern States.”  He resigned his commission in a letter written on April 20, and, without waiting for notice of its acceptance, which alone could discharge him from his military obligation, proceeded to Richmond, where he was formally and publicly invested with the command of the Virginia military and naval forces on April 22; while, two days later, the rebel Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens, and a committee of the Richmond convention signed a formal military league making Virginia an immediate member of the Confederate States, and placing her armies under the command of Jefferson Davis.