John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[106] army had already been resolved upon; and the War Department began giving official notice that volunteers in excess of the first call could only be received for three years or during the war, the details of the new organizations, to consist of 42,034 volunteers, 22,714 regulars, and 18,000 seamen, being publicly announced on May 3d. No express provision of law existed for these measures, but Lincoln ordered them without hesitation, because the exigency did not admit of even the short delay of awaiting the assemblage of Congress. He was too true a type and representative of the people to doubt one instant their sure support and approval of a step which the Constitution covered with its paramount authority, and its imperative personal mandate to the President of the United States to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Following the march of the Seventh Regiment, the Annapolis route remained permanently open to the Union troops from the North. Day by day vessels arrived in Annapolis Harbor with volunteer regiments, with provisions and supplies for their maintenance, with war material for their equipment. These were transferred rapidly over the repaired railroad to Washington City, and it was not long before the National Capital resembled a great military camp. Troops found temporary lodgment in the various public buildings; citizen recruits wrote letters home on the senators' desks, spouted buncombe for pastime from the members' seats in the House of Representatives, spread their blankets for bivouac in the ample corridors of the Patent Office; clusters of tents filled the public squares; regimental tactics, practice in platoon-firing and artillery-drill went on in the surrounding fields; inspection and dress parade became fashionable entertainments; military bands furnished unceasing open-air concerts; the city bloomed with national