Call The Young and Middle-Aged Men of Ohio to Arms!

This entry is from The Sherman Letters; Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891 edited by Rachel Sherman Thorndike.  

The Civil War was mainly fought in the south, but some, including General Sherman saw a real threat to the Northern states in the early days of the war after Bull Run, which he writes to his brother.

September 9, 1861

. . .  Ohio, Indiana and Illinois must sooner or later arm every inhabitant, and the sooner the better. I hardly apprehend that Beauregard can succeed in getting Washington, but should he, it will be worse to us than Manassass; but supposing he falls back, he will first try to overwhelm Rosecrans in Western Virginia and then look to Tennessee. We ought to have here a well appointed Army of a hundred thousand men. . . .

. . . .and if you are full of zeal you could not do better than to raise your voice to call the young and middle-aged men of Ohio to arms. If they can't get muskets then let them get such arms as can be gathered together, or if not that, then let them organize in companies in every township and be ready to collect together and move on short notice. I am amazed to see here and everywhere such apparent indifference when all know that Rebels threaten the Capital and are creeping around us in Missouri and Kansas. If they are united, and we disunited or indifferent, they will succeed. I knew this reaction was natural and to be expected, but it is none the less to be deplored. . .

William Tecumseh Sherman, from Generalsandbrevets.com