The 4th of March, 1861, came, and Abraham Lincoln was sworn to maintain the Union against all its enemies.  The secession of one State after another followed, until eleven had gone out.  On the 11th of April Fort Sumter, a National fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, was fired upon by the Southerners and a few days after was captured.  The Confederates proclaimed themselves aliens, and thereby debarred themselves of all right to claim protection under the Constitution of the United States.  We did not admit the fact that they were aliens, but all the same, they debarred themselves of the right to expect better treatment than people of any other foreign state who make war upon an independent nation.  Upon the firing on Sumter President Lincoln issued his first call for troops and soon after a proclamation convening Congress in extra session.  The call was for 75,000 volunteers for ninety days’ service.  If the shot fired at Fort Sumter “was heard around the world,” the call of the President for 75,000 men was heard throughout the Northern States.  There was not a state in the North of a million of inhabitants that would not have furnished the entire number faster than arms could have been supplied to them, if it had been necessary.

As soon as the news of the call for volunteers reached Galena, posters were stuck up calling for a meeting of the citizens at the court-house in the evening.  Business ceased entirely; all was excitement; for a time there were no party distinctions; all were Union men, determined to avenge the insult to the national flag.  In the evening the court-house was packed.  Although a comparative stranger I was called upon to preside; the sole reason, possibly, was that I had been in the army and had seen service.  With much embarrassment and some prompting I made out to announce the object of the meeting.  Speeches were in order, but it is doubtful whether it would have been safe just then to make other than patriotic ones.  There was probably no one in the house, however, who felt like making any other.  The two principal speeches were by B. B. Howard, the post-master and a Breckinridge Democrat at the November election the fall before, and John A. Rawlins, an elector on the Douglas ticket.  E. B. Washburne, with whom I was not acquainted at that time, came in after the meeting had been organized, and expressed, I understood afterwards, a little surprise that Galena could not furnish a presiding officer for such an occasion without taking a stranger.  He came forward and was introduced, and made a speech appealing to the patriotism of the meeting.

After the speaking was over volunteers were called for to form a company.  The quota of Illinois had been fixed at six regiments; and it was supposed that one company would be as much as would be accepted from Galena.  The company was raised and the officers and non-commissioned officers elected before the meeting adjourned.  I declined the captaincy before the balloting, but announced that I would aid the company in every way I could and would be found in the service in some position if there should be a war.  I never went into our leather store after that meeting, to put up a package or do other business.