[Original]
This longing haunted him by day and night, until it became unbearable. He went to his mother, and with earnest words begged her to send him. Alas, that mother was not equal to the task. She was loving, gentle and shrinking, and when he urged her to let him go, her answer was—“Ralph, you know not what you ask. Do you forget that I am a Southern woman, whose childhoods days were spent in that beautiful country? All my people are there. Would you have me send my boy away to fight those I love, and whose feelings I must share? You are asking too great a sacrifice at my hands.”
“Mother, it is true that you were born and educated there. But did you not love my father so dearly that you left your home and all your friends to come to the North with him, where I was born?”
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A tender smile flitted across her still beautiful face. “Yes, I did love him,” she said softly to herself, “and I honor his memory. What shall I do?—I cannot forget my dear childhood's home. It is too hard a question for me to decide.”
“Let me decide for you, mother. You surely love your Northern home and friends. The people of the South have fired upon our forts in Charleston harbor, and driven the garrison away. I, too, am a Southerner in many ways. Are you not my mother, and do you not know I honor every thought or wish of yours?”
“There must be some other way to bring them back, rather than by fighting. War is a cruel and unnatural alternative. Why, they will be firing upon their own people—like brothers in one family falling out, and seeking to do each other deadly harm.”