On the very day of Lincoln's arrival in Washington, he said to some prominent men who had called upon him at his hotel, "As the country has placed me at the helm of the ship, I'll try to steer her through."
This first call for troops was supplemented a month later (May 16) by a call for 42,034 volunteers for three years, for 22,114 officers and men for the regular army, and 18,000 seamen for the navy.
Orpheus C. Kerr (Office Seeker) was the pseudonymn of Robert H. Newell, a popular humorist of the war period, who dealt particularly with the comic aspects of Washington and army life.