"
At Harrisburg:
"While I am exceedingly gratified to see the manifestation upon your
streets of your military force here, and exceedingly gratified at your
promise to use that force upon a proper emergency--while I make these
acknowledgments, I desire to repeat, in order to preclude any possible
misconstruction, that I do most sincerely hope that we shall have no use
for them; that it will never become their duty to shed blood, and most
especially never to shed fraternal blood. I promise that so far as I may
have wisdom to direct, if so painful a result shall in any wise be
brought about, it shall be through no fault of mine."
While Mr. Lincoln was yet at Philadelphia, he was met by Mr. Frederick
W. Seward, son of Senator Seward, who brought him an important
communication from his father and General Scott at Washington. About the
beginning of the year serious apprehension had been felt lest a sudden
uprising of the secessionists in Virginia and Maryland might endeavor to
gain possession of the national capital. An investigation by a committee
of Congress found no active military preparation to exist for such a
purpose, but considerable traces of disaffection and local conspiracy in
Baltimore; and, to guard against such an outbreak, President Buchanan
had permitted his Secretary of War, Mr.
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