Lee offered US Army command, VA militia takes Harper's Ferry

Col. Robert E. Lee, USA, 1861

• Major Robert Anderson and his Fort Sumter garrison arrives in New York to a hero’s welcome while President Lincoln in Washington listens to an eyewitness account from Mr. Wiley of New York of what he saw in Charleston Friday night, April 12, 1861, during the battle of Fort Sumter. Lincoln then retires early but upon being awakened by John Hay, his assistant secretary, to inform him of a possible plot against his life, Lincoln grins./1861
• F.B. Blair, Sr., presents orders to Colonel Robert Edward Lee, USA, from General of the Army, Winfield Scott. On personal orders from President Lincoln, Scott offers command of the entire US Army to Colonel Robert E. Lee to coerce the South, and a terrible dilemma confronts Lee: Fame or Service to his State. /1861
• Virginia militia under command of Brig. Gen. William H. Harman chases out of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, the Union garrison under command of Lieutenant Jones who destroys as much as possible beforehand to prevent its falling into the possession of the Confederate or Virginia governments./1861 
• Colonel Cake with 400 men, four companies, of the Twenty-fifth Pennsylvania Volunteers arrives in Washington, D. C., the first volunteer troops to enter the city for its defense. On the way, the companies must change trains in Baltimore, Maryland, and march through the city where pro-secession flags fly from buildings on Federal hill. Southern sympathizers cat call, sneer, and make rude remarks. But the tension in Baltimore is decidedly rising./1861

Image by Allen Gathman via Flickr

Missouri Gov. C.F. Jackson

• Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, of Missouri, in rejecting President Lincoln’s demand for a state quota of troops to fight the seceded states, declares the requisition is “illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabolical and cannot be complied with.”/1861

• Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown, in response to the Federal call for troops, calls on all Georgia men to volunteer for military service with this statement, “Let us all, with one accord, prepare to welcome the invaders with "bloody hands to hospitable graves." We have to deal with an enemy wily and treacherous, base, malignant and full of hate. It is impossible to know what are the full designs of Lincoln and his black band. Of one thing we may be assured: they will strike any and all the harm they have the power to do. Therefore we can lose nothing by being fully and thoroughly prepared at every point, and for any emergency. Now we recommend that every man capable of bearing arms, regardless of age, and every boy sixteen years old and upwards, begin immediately to train and drill. ..../1861

• Arkansas troops seize U.S. stores at Napoleon, Arkansas./1861