April 24, 1861---"You are the only Northern realities."

APRIL 24, 1861:         

With the secession of Virginia, President Lincoln fears that Maryland will go out of the Union; if so, Washington, D.C. will be isolated and defenseless.  A gunboat in the Potomac River is ordered to keep steam up at all times in case the President and his Cabinet should need to flee the city. 

Only a few militia units have arrived from Pennsylvania and New York, and Lincoln speaks to them today: “I don’t believe there is any North,” he says morosely. “The Seventh Regiment is a myth...you are the only Northern realities.”