Clearly in the early part of the US Civil War, President Lincoln was facing serious obstacles in his plans to bring an early end to the Southern rebellion. To bring the Confederacy to an end would require the mobilization and operational use of forces on a scale larger to any previous US war The opinion of may pundits there was good reason to doubt the ability of any civilian leader to master a large and complex military machine. Lincoln had no military or executive experience. Many of Lincoln's supporters believed he had the capacity the war would require.
President Abraham Lincoln's greatest accomplishment was to re-unify the US by defeating the Southern rebellion for independence. He had many obstacles to pursue this goal. He was strong enough to not give up on his main goal of keeping the US a united nation under difficult situations and pressure.
After President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteer troops to end the Southern rebellion, the North Carolina militia took control of federal forts Caswell and Johnston.
One week after General McClellan was given command of the Eastern Department, he presented to President Lincoln his plan to end the war in a single campaign. His plan encompassed a military, diplomatic and political set of strategies to end the Southern rebellion in a single campaign.
When US President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to help end the Southern rebellion, four more Southern states joined the Confederacy. These were the states of Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee. The Confederacy now was composed of eleven states.
Abraham Lincoln was the president of the entire country, Jefferson Davis led the southern rebellion against U.S.
States in open rebellion.
Northerners rallied to President Lincoln's call to end the rebellion when Fort Sumter was attacked and captured by Confederate forces. Up until that point, there was no huge public protest regarding the secession of the South by the North. The attack and then the surrender of Fort Sumter caused many men in the North to be available to join the military effort to end the Southern rebellion.
For all practical purposes, President Lincoln had little if any battle ready troops to end the Southern rebellion. Just before the war began, the US army had only 1,105 officers and 15, 259 enlisted soldiers. Since there had been no threats of war from other nations, the US armed forces were small in number.
The upper southern states seceded when Lincoln was elected president of the United States.
Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas seceded from the Union when Abraham Lincoln became president. After Lincoln called for volunteers to end the Southern rebellion, four more states left the Union. These were Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas.
On April 19, 1861, six days after the fall of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln proclaimed a naval blockade against the US states that had seceded from the Union. This would be used against the next four states that joined the rebellion.
Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States. When some southern states decided to secede, they elected their own "president" Jefferson Davis. Lincoln remained President of the United States - all the United States - he just wasn't recognized as such by the southern states that seceded. He was not "President of the North".