President Lincoln's 75,000 volunteers
On April 15, 1861, at the start of the American Civil War, the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, called for a 75,000-man militia to serve for three months following the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter. Some slave states refused to send troops against the neighboring Deep South slave states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas with the result that most such states in the Upper South of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee also declared secession from the United States and joined the Confederate States. Missouri and  Kentucky did not fully secede themselves from Union control but they were admitted by the Confederacy as the 12th and 13th states respectively while Maryland and Delaware stayed in the Union throughout the duration of the war. Background. In April 1861 the Regular Army of the United States of America consisted of approximately 16,000 officers and soldiers organized into ten regiments of infantry, four of artillery, two of cavalry, two of dragoons, and one of mounted rifles. These regiments were mostly posted in small forts of company-sized detachments, the majority posted West of the Mississippi River. Furthermore, following the  secession of seven states from December 1860 to the creation of the Confederate States of America in February 1861, many officers and soldiers had resigned, or were in April 1861 in the process of resigning, from the United States Army to join the Army of the Confederacy. Legal limits. Until the early 20th century, the United States relied on calling out militia and volunteers rather than expanding the regular army. However, there were restrictions on the number of men and the length of time they could serve that the President of the United States, as opposed to a State Governor , could summon. Section 4 of the Militia Act of 1795 provided: On March 2, 1799 the number of militiamen able to be called by the President of the United States for a provisional army was limited to 75,000 men. Prior to the Civil War, this limit had never been adjusted to reflect the growth in the nation's population, which increased almost sixfold from 5.3 million in 1800 to more than 31 million in 1860. During that time, there had not been a domestic insurrection in the United States even on the scale of the short-lived Whiskey Rebellion of  the early 1790s, and therefore little impetus for Congress to reconsider the numerical limits to the militia that had been codified in the late eighteenth century. Declaration. The declaration by Lincoln read: Reaction and resistance. Rather than a call for 75,000 military volunteers from any American state or territory, the two proclamations called for a specific number of volunteers from each state. The Secretary of War's proclamation included slave states in the South that had not yet declared their secession, but excluded the two free states on the Pacific coast (California and Oregon). At the time, a transcontinental railroad  (which would have been necessary to transport troops from nation's far western regions with any sort of ease) had not yet been built. Recently admitted Kansas was also excluded. Several Northern states communicated enthusiasm, with states such as Indiana offering twice as many volunteers as requested. Massachusetts volunteers reached Washington DC as early as April 19. Governor Isham Harris of Tennessee stated in a telegram to Lincoln, "Tennessee will furnish not a single man for the purpose of coercion, but fifty thousand if necessary for the defense of our rights and those of our Southern brothers." Governor Beriah Magoffin  of Kentucky declared that they would not send volunteers to a Northern army intent on subjugating their Southern brethren. Governor John Letcher of Virginia, whose state had been requested to furnish three regiments totalling 5,340 men and officers, had stated in the past his intent for his state to remain neutral. In a letter to Lincoln, he declared that since the president had "chosen to inaugurate civil war, he would be sent no troops from the Old Dominion." Governor Henry Rector of Arkansas stated, "The people of this Commonwealth are freemen, not slaves, and will defend to the last extremity  their honor, lives, and property, against Northern mendacity and usurpation." Subsequent actions. In early May, Lincoln gave a second call for an additional 42,000 men. On May 3 President Lincoln issued a further call for United States Volunteers to serve three years, with regiments to be organized by the state governments, unless sooner discharged. He increased the regular US army by 22,714 men and called for 42,034 more volunteers to enlist for three years. In July 1861, the U.S. Congress sanctioned Lincoln's acts and authorized 500,000 additional volunteers.