Horace Mann himself had a pleasant, kindly face and beautiful snow-white hair parted in the middle. This had suddenly turned white (in a single night, it was said) through grief at the death of his first wife.
In this year, 1857, there was a terrible financial panic, of which I heard some echoes. Nickel cents were then first coined, replacing the large copper ones we had used previously.
During the winter of 1860–61 we heard rumors of war and secession. Some young friends, the sons of Admiral Winslow of Kearsarge fame, had visited the South, and assured us that serious preparations were going on there. Still, we of the North hardly dreamed of the struggle to come. Meantime traitorous officials of the federal government were transferring supplies of arms to the Southern states, knowing well these would soon be used against the nation’s life. Officers trained at West Point and bound by oath to support the government to which they owed not only allegiance, but their education, were resigning from the regular army and going to the South. The North in 1861, like the English in 1914, was unprepared. Many attempts have been made to disguise the issue. Fifty years hence, when all the passions roused by the Civil War have died away, as I pray they may, the truth will stand out clearly. For the rest, it was clear enough in 1860–61. As soon as the Republican party came into power, on a platform declaring, as the framers of the Constitution had declared, that slavery should be extended no farther, the Southern states seceded.
My father was one of those who from the very beginning saw the issue clearly. When the news of the firing on Sumter was received he came, with his quick, active step and gallant bearing, into the nursery at “Green Peace,” crying out to us:
“Sumter has been fired upon! That’s the death-blow of slavery!”
He rejoiced that the irrepressible conflict had begun. Of course he did not foresee—who could?—that the struggle would be so long and so terrible. But he knew it must come. Throughout those four years he never lost faith that the right would triumph. On learning of the attack on Sumter, he wrote at once to Governor Andrew:
Since they will have it so—in the name of God, Amen! Now let all the governors and chief men of the people see to it that war shall not cease until emancipation is secure. If I can be of any use, anywhere, in any capacity (save that of spy), command me.[[9]]
[9]. from Journals and Letters of Samuel Gridley Howe. Dana, Estes & Co.
At the age of sixty, he was too old and too infirm in health to take the field as a soldier. But his early experiences in Greece enabled him to give valuable assistance in safeguarding the health of the army. Both Governor Andrew and Abraham Lincoln were glad to accept my father’s offer of his services. On the formation of the Sanitary Commission, he was appointed a member of the board. His letters and reports are expressed in his usual terse and vigorous style.
When Fort Sumter was fired upon a splendid wave of patriotism swept over the country. That shot, the attack upon the flag, consolidated the men of the North as nothing else could have done. “The Union, it must and shall be preserved,” was the shibboleth of the hour. Democrats and Whigs, as well as Republicans, rallied everywhere to the defense of the Union.