down on board a transport to the strains of Yankee Doodle.

Strange to say, after being four years in Confederate hands,
Sumter was recaptured by the Union forces on the anniversary of
its surrender. It was often bombarded, though never taken, in the
meantime.

The fall of Sumter not only fired all Union loyalty but made
Confederates eager for the fray. The very next day Lincoln called
for 75,000 three-month volunteers. Two days later Confederate
letters of marque were issued to any privateers that would prey
on Union shipping. Two days later again Lincoln declared a
blockade of every port from South Carolina round to Texas. Eight
days afterwards he extended it to North Carolina and Virginia.

But in the meantime Lincoln had been himself marooned in
Washington. On the nineteenth of April, the day he declared his
first blockade, the Sixth Massachusetts were attacked by a mob in
Baltimore, through which the direct rails ran from North to
South. Baltimore was full of secession, and the bloodshed roused
its fury. Maryland was a border slave State out of which the
District of Columbia was carved. Virginia had just seceded. So
when the would-be Confederates of Maryland, led by the Mayor of
Baltimore, began tearing up rails, burning bridges, and cutting
the wires, the Union Government found itself enisled in a hostile
sea. Its own forces abandoned the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry and
the Navy Yard at Norfolk. The work of demolition at Harper's
Ferry had to be bungled off in haste, owing to shortness of time
and lack of means. The demolition of Norfolk was better done, and
the ships were sunk at anchor. But many valuable stores fell into