"The Yankees will not and can not fight! I will guarantee to wipe up with this handkerchief every drop of blood that is spilt."
Neither he nor the audience foresaw what was coming. The Civil War was a family affair, yet the hostility it engendered and the misconception it brought in its train regarding the valor, and even the standards of civilization, of the enemy, were as extreme and virulent as in a war between nations of different continents and races. Such are the brutalizing passions war arouses in banishing from the individual mind the most elementary ideas of brotherhood.
When the war ended my father had to begin life anew, and because of the discouraging prospects and conditions of the South he decided to move North. In the North, too, he could more readily dispose of the remainder of his cotton, his chief asset, to pay off debts which he owed in New York and Philadelphia for goods purchased before the war. With the few thousand dollars remaining after paying these debts, and with good credit, he thought he could begin some new business in a small way.
Simultaneously with our arrival in Philadelphia my brother Isidor arrived in New York from Europe, where he had gone two years before as secretary of a commission to buy supplies for the State of Georgia. The blockade of the Southern ports became so effective that ships could not get through, so that he did not succeed in getting over the supplies; but he made several thousand dollars in the sale of Confederate bonds. Upon learning in New York that we were in Philadelphia, he immediately came there to find out my father's plans. He persuaded father that New York, as the chief market, was preferable to Philadelphia as a secondary one. Consequently we moved to New York, and father and Isidor, together with Nathan, planned to establish themselves in the wholesale crockery business. Isidor, twenty years old, first used part of his fortune to buy for my mother a high-stoop, three-story brick house at 220 West Forty-Ninth Street, now long since torn down, but which we occupied for over eighteen years.
It was fully six months before the new business venture was launched. My father depended for his part of the capital upon the sale of the remainder of his cotton, which had been shipped to Liverpool, and this was not effected until early in 1866. In the intervening months he visited his creditors in New York to arrange for paying his debts. In this connection I remember one significant incident: His principal New York creditor was the dry goods house of George Bliss & Co., to whom he owed an amount between four and five thousand dollars. (Bliss afterward became a member of the banking firm of Morton, Bliss & Co.) When he called regarding the payment of this, Mr. Bliss asked how old he was, what family he had, and what he intended doing. My father answered that he was fifty-seven, that he had a wife and four children, and that he hoped to make a new start in the wholesale crockery business. "I don't think you are fair to your family and yourself," said Mr. Bliss, "to deprive yourself of the slender means you tell me you possess by paying out your available resources. I will compromise with you for less than the full amount in view of the hardships of the war and your family obligations."
My father had a very high sense of honor and was always more concerned in maintaining it beyond possible reproach than in making money. Some parents forget that they cannot successfully live by one standard outside and another inside the home, and many never realize that children are influenced not so much by the preaching as by the true and real spirit of their parents. My father believed that "a good name is better than riches," and within the home or without he lived up to that standard. I clearly remember the impression I received of his integrity at the time of this Bliss incident, and of a certain feeling of compunction on the part of his creditor, as though he had expected something different. Most Southern merchants regarded themselves morally freed from paying Northern creditors because the Confederate government had confiscated such debts and compelled the debtors to pay the amounts to the government. But my father held true to his standard, and I well remember his parting words to Bliss that day: "I propose to pay my debts in full and leave to my children a good name even if I should leave them nothing else."
My brother Isidor, always my guide, philosopher, and friend, now arranged for my schooling. In my geography textbook was a picture of Columbia College, and I had the fixed idea that when we came to New York I wanted to go there. On inquiry we learned that I was too young, for I was only fourteen and a half, and that I had not the requirements for admission. So in the autumn of 1865 Isidor had me enter Columbia Grammar School, then one of the best schools in the city. It was my first experience in a really first-rate school, and the teaching was so much more thorough and exact than my previous training had been that it seemed to me I had to learn everything anew. The tuition fee and the cost of books was considerable, in view of the modest income of the family; but my father, economical in all other respects, was liberal beyond his means where the education of his children was concerned. My brother, moreover, was desirous that I should have the advantages of the college training which circumstances, notably the war, had withheld from him.
I appreciated to the full the privileges I was permitted to enjoy and studied with all my might. The school regulations required that parents fill out a blank each week stating, among other things, the number of hours we studied at home. The average number of hours daily reported were three or four, and as my record was fully double that, I felt rather ashamed to give the true number, so I always gave less. The school was on Fourth Avenue and Twenty-Seventh Street, and our home on Forty-Ninth Street was near Eighth Avenue. I invariably walked both ways, saving car fares and at the same time conserving my health, for aside from a half-hour of gymnastics twice a week in school I had neither time nor opportunity otherwise to get the exercise my body required.
Owing to the careless preparation I had received at the schools in the South, I made a poor showing in spite of my hard work now, though on one occasion I shone with accidental glory. It was the custom for the instructor to put the same question to pupil after pupil, and to elevate the one who gave the correct answer to the head of the class. In this instance, it so happened that I gave the fortunate answer and thus qualified for the seat of scholastic eminence. As I sat there enjoying a near view of the teacher's countenance, I wondered how long I should remain thus distinguished, and was unable to resist the impulse to cast an occasional backward glance at the rows of seats in the rear.