On February 17, the House adopted resolutions pledging to Maryland the fellowship and support of Pennsylvania. On January 24, the House had adopted resolutions taking high ground in favor of sustaining the Constitution of the Union.
Threatening as was the danger, while the Legislature was in session and meetings were being held in Philadelphia and throughout the State, no one anticipated that the strife would actually break forth so suddenly, nor that it would grow to such fearful proportions at the very beginning.
It is true, that the soldiers of the South, who had long secretly been preparing to dissolve the Union unmasked their design when the guns of Fort Moultrie were trained on Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, South Carolina, April 12, 1861. No State in the Union was less prepared, so far as munitions of war were concerned, to take its part in the conflict than Pennsylvania. Her volunteer soldiery system had fallen in decay.
There were fewer volunteer companies of militia in Pennsylvania at that moment than ever before on the rolls of the Adjutant General’s office. But when the first overt act was committed, and the news was flashed over the Northland, it created no fiercer feeling of resentment anywhere than it did throughout the Keystone State.
On the morning of April 12, 1861, a message was handed to Governor Curtin in Harrisburg which read as follows:
“The war is commenced. The batteries began firing at 4 o’clock this morning. Major Anderson replied, and a brisk cannonading commenced. This is reliable and has just come by Associated Press. The vessels were not in sight.”
Later in the day, in response to the Governor’s suggestion, the Legislature passed an act reorganizing the military department of the State and appropriated $500,000 for the purpose.
President Lincoln issued a proclamation, April 15, calling out 75,000 militia from the different States to serve for three months. A requisition was at once made on Pennsylvania for fourteen regiments. The alacrity with which these regiments were furnished demonstrated not so much the military ardor as it did the patriotic spirit of the people. Sufficient men were rushed to Harrisburg not only to fill up the State quota of fourteen regiments, but enough to organize twenty-five.
There were two distinguished patriotic Pennsylvanians who comprehended the seriousness of the situation from the outset. General Simon Cameron, who had resigned his seat in the United States Senate to become the Secretary of War in President Lincoln’s Cabinet, advised the organization of the most powerful army the North could raise, so that at one blow armed rebellion might be effectually crushed. Governor Curtin took advantage of the excess men offering their services and began at once, after the complement of the three months’ men had been furnished to the Federal Government, to organize the famous Reserve Corps.
He discovered the approaching tornado in the distance, and thus commenced to prepare for its fury, the Reserves being the only troops well organized and disciplined in the North ready for the services of the Union at the moment of the disaster of the first battle of Bull Run.