On the evening of Friday, April 12, word of the attack on Fort Sumter reached Washington, where Lincoln calmly remarked that “he did not expect it so soon,” for he had anticipated that the secessionists would wait until the arrival of Gustavus Fox’s fleet. When a congressional delegation asked his reaction to the news, he replied laconically: “I do not like it.” That day Lincoln met twice with the future commissioner of public buildings, Benjamin Brown French, who told his son that the president “is as firm as a rock, & means to show the world that there is a United States of America left yet.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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