"At seven o'clock on Thursday evening, April 18, 1861, approximately 475 Pennsylvania citizens-turned-soldiers, comprising the ranks of five volunteer militia companies, arrived in Washington D.C., to protect the nation's capital. The first shots of the American Civil War were fired less than a week earlier at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, and it had been just three days since President Abraham Lincoln--in office for only one month but confronted with the greatest crisis to ever befall the young Republic--issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to quell the Southern rebellion. When the Pennsylvanians detrained that evening, they were the first of the volunteers to reach Washington and have been identified in history as "First Defenders." Major Irvin McDowell (1818-1885), who three months later led the Union army to an ignominious defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run, met the five First Defender companies at the station and led them to their assigned quarters at the U.S. Capitol where they settled in for the night.
Early the following morning, President Lincoln, accompanied by Secretary of State William H. Seward (1801-1872) and Secretary of War Simon Cameron (1799-1889), traveled to Capitol Hill to greet the soldiers. A number of volunteers from Pottsville's Washington Artillery called upon the commander-in-chief to deliver a speech, but Lincoln declined. "Officers and soldiers of the Washington Artillery," the president responded, "I did not come here to make a speech; the time for speechmaking has gone by, the time for action is at hand. I have come here to give you a warm welcome to the city of Washington, and to shake hands with every officer and soldier in your company providing you grant me the privilege." No one, naturally, denied Lincoln his request…"
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