Buy this book and then read it (I bought the Kindle version). It is an excellent window into life in Washington City in the days after the fall of Fort Sumter. It chronicles life in the District starting April 14th, 1861. Word had spread to Washington that the Union flag was lowered over Fort Sumter. Lincoln and his cabinet feel it is imminent that Beauregard is going to invade the city. Fear and panic grip the city as Lincoln issues an emergency order to call on 75,000 Union volunteers. Jefferson Davis' public response to this proclamation quite harsh.

Fort Sumter is ours, and nobody is hurt. With mortar, Paixhan, and petard, we tender 'Old Abe' our Beau-regard.

An advertisement ran in the Mobile paper that day asking for proposals to supply the Confederacy with 75,000 black coffins -- and no proposals would be accepted from north of the Mason-Dixon Line (of course).