ere naturally a better fighting race than the Northerners.
Facts ultimately sustained Lincoln's just estimate of equality; for
though the North employed far greater numbers than did the South, it was
because the North had the burdens of attack and conquest upon exterior
lines of great extent, because it had to detail large bodies of troops
for mere garrison and quasi-police duty, and because during the latter
part of the war it took miserable throngs of bounty-bought foreigners
into its ranks. Man for man, as Lincoln said at the outset, the war
proved that Northern Americans and Southern Americans were closely
matched.[134]

By the same instrument the President summoned Congress to assemble in
extra session on July 4. It seemed a distant date; and many thought that
the Executive Department ought not to endeavor to handle alone all the
possible novel developments of so long a period. But Mr. Lincoln had his
purposes. By July 4 he and circumstances, together, would have wrought
out definite conditions, which certainly did not exist at present;
perhaps also, like most men who find themselves face to face with
difficult practical affairs, he dreaded the conclaves of the
law-makers; but especially he wished to give Kentucky a chance to hold a
special election for choosing members of this Congress, because the
moral and political value of Kentucky could hardly be overestimated, and
the most tactful manoeuvring was necessary to control her.

The Confederate cabinet was said to have greeted Mr. Lincoln's
proclamation with "bursts of laughter." The governors of Kentucky, North
Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri telegraphed that no troops
would be furnished by their respective States, using language clearly
designed to be offensive and menacing. The Northern States, however,
responded promptly and enthusiastically. Men thronged to enlist.
Hundreds of thousands offered themselves where only 75,000 could be
accepted. Of the human raw material there was excess; but discipline and
equipment could not be created by any measure of mere willingness. Yet
there was great need of dispatch. Both geographically and politically
Washington lay as an advanced outpost in immediate peril. General Scott
had been collecting the few companies within reach; but all, he said on
April 8, "may be too late for this place." By April 15, however, he
believed himself able to hold the city till reinforcements should
arrive. The total nominal streng