Awaiting further troops for defense of Washington, Lincoln talks to wounded men of 6th Massachusetts Regiment at White House and remarks: "I begin to believe that there is no North." Nicolay, Lincoln's Secretary, 96.

Lincoln responds to a recent letter from former U.S. Senator Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland. Johnson seeks to calm the fears of the citizens of Maryland and Virginia by assuring them that Lincoln does not plan to order an "invasion" of either state. Lincoln replies, "I have no purpose to invade Virginia . . . I have no objection to declare a thousand times that I have no purpose to invade Virginia or any other State, but I do not mean to let them invade us without striking back." Reverdy Johnson to Abraham Lincoln, 22 April 1861, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Abraham Lincoln to Reverdy Johnson, 24 April 1861, CW, 4:342-43.