In the late afternoon, three officers on General Beauregard's staff, including Colonel James Chesnut, Jr., a recent U. S. senator, arrived at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, with a demand for the evacuation of the post.  Major Robert Anderson, in command, refused, but indicated that he would have to surrender in a few days regardless, due to lack of food.  He later offered, if not given other instructions, to evacuate on April 15, 1861.  (By John Osborne)

With the decision to reinforce or evacuate Fort Sumter as yet unclear, one the Confederate Commissioners, Martin Crawford, wrote to Montgomery that from his observations in the federal capital "the movement of troops, and preparation on board of vessels of war ... are continued with the greatest activity.  An important move requiring a formidable military and naval force is certainly on foot." The response of General Beauregard in Charleston was to call for more volunteers.  (By John Osborne)   

After a hard-fought city election campaign in St. Louis, Missouri, the "Union Anti-Black Republican" ticket handily defeated the sitting Republicans. Daniel G. Taylor defeated Republican John How for mayor, while the unified anti-Republicans won almost every ward in the city.  Taylor was relatively successful over a difficult two years of civil war and was re-elected in 1862.  Republicans regained the mayor's office in 1863.  (By John Osborne)  

In the Connecticut state election, Governor William Buckingham, a staunch ally of Abraham Lincoln, won re-election with a substantially increased majority of 2,000 over Democrat James C. Loomis.  The year before, Buckingham had defeated Thomas Seymour, who was sympathetic to southern complaints, by only five hundred votes.  Republicans also maintained strong control of both houses of the legislature. Buckingham served as an energetic "war governor" till 1866.  (By John Osborne)

Just before midnight, the night mail train from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh broke an axle about fifteen miles from its destination and derailed near present-day Wall, Pennsylvania.  Several carriages ran down a fifteen foot embankment but only five of the eighty sleeping passengers aboard suffered minor injuries.  The mail carriage caught fire, however, when a stove overturned and several of the mail pouches burned.  (By John Osborne)

The United States Senate of the 37th Congress, with its new Republican majority, was called into a special session by President Buchanan just before the end of his tenure.  The session continued until March 28, 1861.  (By John Osborne)  

John McLean had been a recent candidate for president, had sat on the Supreme Court since 1829, and was the last living member of either the Monroe or the Quincy Adams cabinets.  He was also a strong Methodist and a trustee of Dickinson College, the third member of the Court with such ties, and perhaps most famous for his strong dissent in the Dred Scott Case.  His death provided Abraham Lincoln with his second vacancy on the Court.  Lincoln replaced him with Illinois friend and colleague David Davis.  (By John Osborne)  

Working at the Brera Observatory in Milan, astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli discovered the sixty-ninth asteroid found in this solar system.  He named it "Hesperia" after the classical Greek name for the Italian Peninsula.  An M-type minor planet in the main asteroid belt, Hesperia measures only 138.13 kilometers in diameter and has a 5.655 hour day and an 1,879 day year.  (By John Osborne)  

In an important election result, John Millbank Delph, formerly a Whig and now an avowed Unionist, was easily elected as mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, taking two-thirds of the vote over his Southern Rights Party opponent. Union supporters were also successful in the city council election on the same day.  This was Delph's second tenure as mayor, he had been in office between 1850 and 1852, and he served till April 1863.  (By John Osborne)

Jerry O'Neill, whose stage name was "Jerry Bryant," was the eldest of three brothers from Chesterfield, New York who led the Bryant Minstrels during their period of wild popularity just before the Civil War.  They began in 1857, performing in black-face before huge crowds in the north-east with songs like group member Dan Emmett's "Dixie."  Jerry Bryant died of a brain seizure two months before his thirty-third birthday.  His brothers continued the group during the war and after. (By John Osborne)