Hey everyone, thanks for downloading episode 38 of our Civil War podcast. I'm Rich.

I'm Tracey. Hello y'all. Welcome to the podcast. In the last show, we talked about the threat to Washington DC in April 1861 caused by Virginia's

secession and also by the hostility of the still wavering slave state of Maryland. Wild rumors of Confederate invasion swept through the

capital causing near panic. The Treasury building was hastily turned into an armed fortress where the city's defenders and President Lincoln and his

cabinet could take refuge if one of the rumored attacks took place. In the last episode, we also talked about the first contingent of volunteer troops to arrive in the

vulnerable capital. That is the five companies of Pennsylvania militia who traveled through Maryland on their way to the defense of Washington and how they were assaulted by a taunting, rock throwing, pro-Confeder at mob as they move through the streets of Baltimore.

And then hard on the heels of the Pennsylvania's arrival was news that Virginia militia at the urging of ex-governor Henry Wise had seized the US arsenal at Harper's Ferry.

And after the capture of the arsenal, it appears there were some rather sketchy plans for the Virginia militia at Harper's Ferry to be carried by train either to take arms to the secessionist in Baltimore or to move on Washington DC itself.

And ironically, it seems that one of the major reasons that nothing came of these plans is that because of their sensitivity to the state's rights issue, the hostile Virginians were hesitant to cross over into Maryland.

But with the news of Virginia's secession and the capture of Harper's Ferry and the fact that the Pennsylvania militia had been roughed up on their way through Baltimore, the nation on April 19th realized that Washington DC was to be the first front line in the new war.

A headline in the April 19th 1861 New York Herald newspaper read, stirring in decisive news, Virginia seceded Washington and the line of the Potomac to be the battlefield.

The article that followed said, quote, Virginia has seceded she has taken this dreadful leap in the dark and terrible to her we fear will be the consequences.

A revolutionary army under governor wise is supposed to be moving upon Washington. End quote.

While the men of the first Pennsylvania had experienced a bit of an ordeal and had been roughed up a bit on their way through Baltimore, they nevertheless managed to traverse the hostile city largely unscathed.

But the next contingent of troops rushing south to defend Washington would not be so lucky.

The next regimen scheduled to reach the Capitol was the sixth Massachusetts. That militia unit was one of four that had been preparing and drilling in the Bay State for several months on the assumption that the first wave of secession had made war inevitable.

A lawyer and democratic politician named Benjamin Butler was just one of several Massachusetts militia commanders, but it was Butler who managed to finagle his way into leading the first troops that would leave the state.

Since Butler will pop up in our story from time to time from here on out, we'll take a few minutes here to describe him and to share just how he came to command the first Massachusetts troops to leave the state.

Since this particular story gives you a pretty good idea of what kind of guy Butler was.

All right, anyway, we'll put a photo up on the website, but here's how historian David Detser in his book, Dissonance, The Turbulent Days Between Fort Sumter and Bull Run. Here's how he describes Butler.

Quote, Benjamin Franklin Butler was almost shockingly ugly. At 43 years old, he looked as doughy as a 200 pound sack of suet.

His hair had already receded to the farthest ranks of his paint, and he kept his sideburns and the main at the back of his head long.

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