“My oldest son is in the army, and shall I read with trembling anxiety the account of every battle to see if he is slain? I gave him to the Lord, and I shall not take him back and I will not worry and fret myself about him. I will trust in God though He slay not only him but me also; and all I have I put on the same ground—I try to, sometimes not succeeding and sometimes succeeding a little. My God, this Christ Emmanuel—God with me—has sustained and comforted me in care and trouble, and taken away my fear and put hope in its place, and I will look to Him still; and if there are any here that have carried burdens, and whose faces are wrinkled with care, I beseech of you to try living by faith in a present Saviour that loves you and ordains all things, and says that everything shall work for your good if you love God.” Among the things that occupied his time and called forth all his energies was the equipment of the Fourteenth Long Island Regiment. His home at 124 Columbia Heights became a store-house of military goods and a place of consultation for men interested in the events that were taking place; Plymouth Church became a rendezvous for regiments passing to the front, and the church parlors a workshop where the women and maidens of the church, under the direction of Mrs. Beecher, met daily to sew and knit and pack for the soldiers. He told Mrs. Beecher to use all his salary in this direction, except such as was absolutely necessary for running the household. She did this, and added to the amount by personal solicitation from families and merchants, until an immense sum was raised and expended. While many men sent single substitutes, Mr. Beecher determined to be represented in the war by a whole regiment; and so, after helping to fit out two regiments, he took upon himself the entire burden of equipping a new one, called “The Long Island Volunteers,” afterwards the Sixty-seventh New York. This regiment would never have had any existence but for the labors of Mr. and Mrs. Beecher, and the members of the church whom they interested in it. Their eldest son, Henry Barton Beecher, joined it and was made a lieutenant. In those days the government had plenty of men and very little money, and therefore declined to accept this regiment for many weeks after it was organized, during which time the entire expense of feeding and clothing the men was borne by subscriptions raised by Mr. Beecher. It was not until after the battle of Bull Run, at the end of July, 1861, that the regiment was even in form accepted, and not until much later that it was actually mustered into the national service.