Virginia Unionist, John Baldwin, personally warned Abraham Lincoln that Virginia would succeed from the Union within 48 hours if he attempted to reinforce Southern forts. At an April 17, 1861 succession convention, Virginia, one of the most powerful, populous and economically diverse states at the time, overwhelmingly voted to succeed just weeks after voting by a two to one margin to stay in the Union.
The shelling of Fort Sumpter caused virtually no casualties and both military leaders did all they could to minimize the conflict. However, some of the northern newspapers favored the new Whig based Republican platform and stood to benefit in prestige and power from it. These newspapers led some Northerners to believe that the conflict meant that the union was being threatened. This generated a false sense of patriotism and some temporary public support for military retaliation.
On April 15, 1861, Abraham Lincoln then issued a proclamation that stated: "The laws of the United States have been and are opposed in several States by combinations too powerful to be suppressed in the ordinary way, I therefore call for the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of 75,000, to suppress said combination and execute the laws"
The war then actually started on July 18, 1861, when Abraham Lincoln, against the will of General Scott and his military advisers, decided to invade Virginia. That state was actually a Union member at the time of the Fort Sumpter conflict. At the first battle of Bull Run in Manassas, there were over 4,000 casualties, the majority falling on the Union side.
IX. THE MYTH OF NORTHERN SUPPORT FOR THE WAR
Americans today have been led to believe that all northerners supported the war when many opposed an invasion of the southern states just to preserve the union. Thousands of Northern citizens, dozens of legislators and hundreds of publishers and editors acknowledged state's rights, including the right of succession, and wanted a peaceful solution to the potential conflict.
On April 19, 1961 residents of Baltimore Md., in opposition to the looming invasion of the south attacked the 6th Massachusetts Infantry while it was on its way to Washington D.C. to receive its orders. Four members of the infantry were killed. The first act of aid described by Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross, was helping the wounded infantry soldiers.
In New York during July 11-13, 1863, major riots and looting broke out in response to Lincoln's attempt to draft Northerners and immigrants into the war through the signing of the Enrollment Conscription Act. Thousands were killed or injured since the militia had been called to Gettysburg and only the police were left to control the riots.
Lincoln's waging of the war was so unpopular that even if his own general, George McClellan, who served as chief of the entire Union Army between November of 1861 and March of 1862, chose to run against him as a Democrat in the 1864 elections conducted by the Union.
To control public opinion Lincoln suspended habeas corpus on April 27, 1861 by violating the U.S. Constitution as cited by Chief Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney. He then imprisoned thousands of northern dissenters, the Maryland state legislature and hundreds of newspaper editors and publishers throughout the Northern states, including Francis Scott Key's grandson
Ohio Senator Clement Vallandigham strongly replied to Abraham Lincoln's State of the Union speech and cited his many unconstitutional policies. Five days later, on May 5, 1861, General Ambrose Burnside's troops broke into his house at 2:30am and arrested him. Lincoln had him deported to the Confederacy and he later went to Canada. The Democrats in Ohio, home state to General Grant and General Sherman, were so upset by the move that they nominated him for Governor.
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