May 3, 1861
- General Winfield Scott orders troops to seize Arlington Heights, overlooking Washington D. C.
- Lincoln calls for volunteers to join the Union Army for a three-year term.
A Chronological History of the Civil War in America1
- Legislature of Connecticut voted $2,000,000 for public defense.
- Governor of Virginia called out the militia to defend the State from the Northerners.
- President of the United States issued a proclamation calling for 42,000 additional three-years’ volunteers, 22,714 additional regulars, and 18,000 additional seamen, to be mustered into the service of the Government.
- A Chronological History of the Civil War in America by Richard Swainson Fisher, New York, Johnson and Ward, 1863