“What Eric S. told us was then true,” he said, without forming the words with his lips. “Virginia has joined her sisters. And the people have got hold of the news. Are they blind, not to see that their State will be the battle-ground, if war should be declared?”
How dearly and for how long she was to pay for her blindness, let the history of the next four years say!
Leaving the boat at Washington, we were conveyed by stages across the city to the Baltimore station. It was two o’clock in the spring morning, when we passed the Capitol. It was lighted from basement to roof, but, to passers-by, as still as a tomb. Nothing had brought home to us the fact and the imminence of the peril to our national existence, as did the sight of that lighted pile. For, as we had been informed, it was filled with armed men, on guard against surprise or open attack. On the train, we heard how troops had been hurried from all quarters of the still loyal States into Washington. The war was on!
Full appreciation of what the Great Awakening was, and what it portended, came to us in Philadelphia. I had not known there was so much bunting on this side of the Atlantic as fluttered in the breeze in the city of staid homes and brotherly loves. It was a veritable bourgeoning of patriotism. From church-spires; from shop-windows; from stately dwellings, and from the lowliest house in the meanest street—they
“All uttered forth a glorious voice.”
Successful rebellion seemed an impossibility in the face of the demonstration.
Every village, town, and farm-house along the route proclaimed the same thing. So convinced were we that the mere knowledge of the strength and unity of the North, East, and West would carry conviction to the minds of the led, and strike terror to the hearts of the leaders in the gigantic Treason, that we rallied marvellously the spirits which had flagged last night.
The train ran into Newark at eight o’clock that evening. By the time it stopped, we had a glimpse of familiar and anxious faces. We stepped off into the arms of four of our parishioners, all on the alert for the first sight of the man of their hour. They received us as they might welcome friends rescued from great and sore perils.
Carriage and baggage-wagon were waiting. We were tucked into our seats tenderly, and with what would have been exaggerated solicitude in men less single of heart and motive.
“But you knew that we would surely come back?” I said to Mr. Farmer, at the third repetition of his—“Thank Heaven you are here!”