The Virginia Convention, meeting at the Mechanics Hall in Richmond as a committee of the whole on the recently report of Committee on Federal Relations, were faced with an amendment that proposed an ordinance of secession, to be confirmed in a referendum.  The motion was overwhelmingly defeated on a vote of 89 to 45.  Thirteen days later, as events unfolded elsewhere , Virginia voted to secede from the Union.  (By John Osborne) 

The firing on Fort Sumter and President Lincoln's resultant call for volunteers swiftly motivated the Virginia Convention meeting in Richmond to vote an Ordinance of Secession. Just thirteen days before, a motion for secession had been heavily defeated, now the resolution passed 88 to 55, with a ratification referendum scheduled for May 23, 1861.  Western Virginia representatives remained heavily opposed to the action.  (By John Osborne) 

On President Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops to protect the Union, Secretary of War Simon Cameron wrote to the governors of all non-seceding states outlining the quotas of men he was expecting to respond.  Each regiment was to number 780 officers and men and serve for three months.  Ohio led the quota, with 18 regiments, New York 17, and Pennsylvania 16.  Virginia was assessed three regiments, Kentucky four, Maryland four, and Massachusetts two.  The letter received differing responses from the states, especially the slave states.  (By John Osborne)  

U.S. Army units forced to evacuate Texas when state forces took over their installations arrived in New York aboard the chartered steamer Coatzacoalcos.  The vessel had sailed from Indianola, Texas on March 31, 1861 and journeyed northwards via Key West, Florida, where she left two companies, and Havana, Cuba.  She disembarked 417 men the next day, among them Captain George Stoneman of the 2nd Cavalry.  (By John Osborne)

The Pennsylvania Legislature took up its military appropriations bill and during the afternoon the news of the firing on Fort Sumter galvanized both chanbers.  The bill, drawn up by Alexander K. McClure, passed without amendment in the evening and provided $500,000 for the militia and an Adjudant-General, Commisary-General, and Quartermaster-General to lead and equip massively expanded state forces.  (By John Osborne) 

President Lincoln, responding to the firing on Fort Sumter, issued a proclamation calling for "the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand ... to cause the laws to be duly executed." Their first duty would be to "re-possess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union."  The statement also ordered a special session of both houses of congress to convene at noon on July 4, 1861.  (By John Osborne)

Southern sympathizers in Maryland further restricted federal troop movements towards Washignton through Baltimore when they overnight burned sections of the railroad bridges over the Gunpowder and Bush Rivers that carried the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad and the Northern Central Railroad. Troops now had to be moved by water, from Havre de Grace down to Annapolis.  (By John Osborne)   

A small federal force had garrisoned Fort Pickens, a key fortress that controlled Pensacola Bay, since early in the year. On secret orders from President Lincoln, delivered by naval Lieutenant John L. Worden to the federal ships off the coast, soldiers and marines were landed under cover of darkness in small boats to reinforce the eighty men holding the installation.  (By John Osborne)