LINCOLN'S POLICY.--President Buchanan did nothing to prevent all this, and such was the political situation when Lincoln was inaugurated (March 4, 1861). His views and his policy were clearly stated in his inaugural address: "I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists.... No state on its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union.... The Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take care that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the states.... In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority.... The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government." FORT SUMTER CAPTURED.--Almost all the "property and places" belonging to the United States government in the seven seceding states had been seized by the Confederates. [3] But Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor was still in Union hands, and to this, Lincoln notified the governor of South Carolina, supplies would be sent. Thereupon the Confederate army already gathered in Charleston bombarded the fort till Major Anderson surrendered it (April 14, 1861). [4] [Illustration: ONE OF THE BATTERIES THAT BOMBARDED FORT SUMTER.] THE WAR OPENS.--With the capture of Fort Sumter the war for the Union opened in earnest. On April 15 Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand militia to serve for three months. [5] Thereupon Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas seceded and joined the Confederacy. The capital of the Confederacy was soon moved from Montgomery to Richmond, Virginia. In the slave-holding states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri the Union men outnumbered the secessionists and held these states in the Union. When Virginia seceded, the western counties refused to leave the Union, and in 1863 were admitted into the Union as the state of West Virginia. THE DIVIDING LINE.--The first call for troops was soon followed by a second. The responses to both were so prompt that by July 1, 1861, more than one hundred and eighty thousand Union soldiers were under arms. They were stationed at various points along a line that stretched from Norfolk in Virginia up the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River to Harpers Ferry, and then across western Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. South of this dividing line were the Confederate armies. [6] Geographically this line was cut into three sections: that in Virginia, that in Kentucky, and that in Missouri, [Illustration: STONE BRIDGE OVER BULL RUN. Crossed by many fleeing Union men.]