roved the most
impressive. Cochrane had a good presence, a clear, penetrating voice,
and spoke in round, rhetorical periods. If he sometimes illustrated
the passionate and often the extravagant declaimer, his style was
finished, and his fervid appeals deeply stirred the emotions if they
did not always guide the reason. It was evident that he now spoke with
the sincere emotion of one whose mind and heart were filled with the
cause for which he pleaded. In his peroration, pointing to the torn
flag of Sumter, he raised the vast audience to such a pitch of
excitement that when he dramatically proclaimed his motto to be, "Our
country, our whole country--in any event, a united country," the
continued cheering was with great difficulty sufficiently suppressed
to allow the introduction of another speaker.[773]

[Footnote 772: New York _Tribune_, April 22, 1861. New York _Times_,
New York _Herald_, April 21.]

[Footnote 773: New York _Herald_, April 21, 1861.]

Of the regiments called for New York's quota was seventeen. Governor
Morgan immediately communicated it to the Legislature, which
authorised in a few hours the enlistment of 30,000 volunteers for two
years. Instantly every drill room and armory in the State became a
scene of great activity, and by April 19, four days after the call,
the Seventh New York, each man carrying forty-eight rounds of ball
cartridge, received an enthusiastic ovation as it marched down
Broadway on its way to Washington. Thereafter, each day presented,
somewhere in the State, a similar pageant. Men offered their services
so much faster than the Government could take them that bitterness
followed the fierce competition.[774] By July 1 New York had despatched
to the seat of war 46,700 men--an aggregate that was swelled by
December 30 to 120,361. Loans to the government, offered with an
equally lavish hand, approximated $33,000,000 in three months.

[Footnote 774: New York _Tribune_, July 21, 24.]

To aid in the purchase and arming of steamships and in the movement of
troops and forwarding of supplies, President Lincoln, during the
excitement incident to the isolation of Washington, conferred
extraordinary powers upon Governor Morgan, William M. Evarts, and
Moses H. Grinnell, to whom army officers were instructed to report for
orders. Similar powers to act for the Treasury Department in the
disbursement of public money were conferred upon John A. Dix, George
Opdyke, and Richard M. Blatchford. Th