[195] that from fifteen hundred, to two thousand troops are at the White House (four miles below Mount Vernon, a narrow point in the Potomac), engaged in erecting a battery; Second, that an equal force is collected or in progress of assemblage on the two sides of the river to attack Fort Washington; and Third, that extra cars went up yesterday to bring down from Harper's Ferry about two thousand other troops to join in a general attack on this capital — that is, on many of its fronts at once. I feel confident that with our present forces we can defend the Capitol, the Arsenal, and all the executive buildings (seven) against ten thousand troops not better than our District volunteers.
Throughout this crisis President Lincoln not only maintained his composure, but promptly assumed the high responsibilities the occasion demanded. On Sunday, April 21, he summoned his cabinet to meet at the Navy Department, and with their unanimous concurrence issued a number of emergency orders relating to the purchase of ships, the transportation of troops and munitions of war, the advance of $2,000,000 of money to a Union Safety Committee in New York, and other military and naval measures, which were despatched in duplicate by private messengers over unusual and circuitous routes. In a message to Congress, in which he afterward explained these extraordinary transactions, he said:
It became necessary for me to choose whether, using only the existing means, agencies, and processes which Congress had provided, I should let the government fall at once into ruin, or whether, availing myself of the broader powers conferred by the Constitution in cases of insurrection, I would make an effort to save it with all its blessings for the present age and for posterity.
