And what advice did the country give him? There was one roaring shout dinning into his ears all round the Northern horizon-"On to Richmond!" Following Virginia's secession, Richmond had become the Confederate capital. It was expected that a session of the Confederate Congress would open at Richmond in July. "On to Richmond! Forward to Richmond!" screamed The Tribune. "The Rebel Congress must not be allowed to meet there on the 20th of July. By that date the place must be held by the national army." The Times advised the resignation of the Cabinet; it warned the President that if he did not give prompt satisfaction he would be superseded. Though Lincoln laughed at the threat of The Times to "depose" him, he took very seriously all the swiftly accumulating evidence that the North was becoming rashly impatient Newspaper correspondents at Washington talked to his secretaries "impertinently."(5) Members of Congress, either carried away by the excitement of the hour or with slavish regard to the hysteria of their constituents, thronged to Washington clamoring for action. On purely political grounds, if on no other, they demanded an immediate advance into Virginia. Military men looked with irritation, if not with contempt, on all this intemperate popular fury. That grim Sherman, who had been offended by Lincoln's tone the month previous, put their feeling into words. Declining the offer of a position in the War Department, he wrote that he wished "the Administration all success in its almost impossible task of governing this distracted and anarchial people."(6)