April 25, (Thursday)

"We breathe a little free now."
                                   ----Horatio Nelson Taft

"Diary of  Yankee in the Patent Office," Daily Chronicles of the American Civil War, April 25, 1861.   "The 7th Regt is at last here, came at 12 o'clock and created much enthusiasm.  We breathe a little free now...."


The story of the first volunteer Northern soldiers to come into Washington on this day, April 25, 1861.  Also, the narrative of Private Barnes.  Excellent read....   "Private Barnes and the Saviors of Washington,"  by Ronald S. Coddington, Disunion--New York Times, April 24, 2011.

"With President Lincoln looking on from the White House portico, a crack regiment of volunteer Northern soldiers marched along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., with parade-ground precision, resplendent in tailored gray uniforms trimmed in black.  Nearly 1,000 bayonet-tipped muskets pointed into the spring sky and glimmered in the sun.  Lincoln smiled...Lincoln was the 'happiest looking man in town as the regiment was marching by him' remarked an Illinois gent."  The New York Seventh Regiment numbered among the first to respond to Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops to suppress the rebellion. 

 
The Narrative of the Day:  Civil War Daily Gazette, The Seventh Regiment is Not a Myth, Stephen Douglas -- Lincoln Supporter, Securing Arms from Secessionists in St. Louis, Lincoln Takes Precautions Against Maryland.

News for all over the country:  A Diary of American Events, April 25, 1861.

Daily Chronicles of the American Civil War, "War Diary of a Union Woman in the South-Tribulation."  "...A gentleman leaving for Richmond called to bid me good-bye.  We had a serious talk on the chances of his coming home maimed.  He handed me a rose and went off gaily, while a vision came before me of the crowd of cripples that will be hobbling around when the war is over.  It stayed with me all the afternoon while I shook hands with one after another in their shining gray and gold uniforms...."

And finally, a book review:  "1861 -- The Civil War Awakening," by Adam Goodheart.  "The Nation Stirs, The Civil War Begins," by Debbie Applegate, April 21, 2011.  Debbie Applegate is the author of "The Most Famous Man in America:  The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher," which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007.