=453. First Call for Troops.=—The firing upon Sumter sent a thrill of patriotic determination throughout the North. On the 15th of April, Lincoln issued a proclamation, declaring that a combination against the Union had been formed, and calling for an enlistment of seventy-five thousand men for three months, “in order to suppress said combination and to cause the laws to be duly executed.” He also called upon all loyal citizens to aid and facilitate “this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union.” The response was immediate and overwhelming. Douglas, then upon his dying bed, dictated a letter, declaring that the only course left for patriotic men was to sustain the Union “against all assailants.” The course of Douglas unquestionably did much to unite all parties in the North. In every city and town mass meetings were instantly held and companies and regiments were formed. Senator Chandler telegraphed: “Michigan will send you fifty thousand men, if you desire.” Indiana, whose quota was five thousand, telegraphed that ten thousand were ready. So it was from every quarter of the North. Men came in such numbers that instead of seventy-five thousand, the War Department accepted more than ninety-one thousand. In the South, the people were likewise fired with enthusiasm and drawn nearer together. There was, at first, an opposition to secession in Virginia, but reluctance to allow troops to pass over her soil and the demand that she should furnish her quota _against_ the South, turned the scale. Four of the border states, as they were then called,—North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas,—now passed Ordinances of Secession. Shortly after Virginia seceded, April 17, the capital of the Confederacy was transferred from Montgomery to Richmond. MILITARY AND FINANCIAL STRENGTH OF THE COMBATANTS.