Doughfaces I suppose we must have been, if the term applied fitly to those who, between the alternatives of dissolving the Union and fighting one another, were longing to see some third way open out of the dilemma. In this sense Lincoln, with his life-long record of opposition to the extension of slavery, was a doughface. The marine could afford to harden his face, because he believed there would be no war--the North would not fight; while the midshipman, rather limited intellectually, was happy in a mental constitution which could see but one side of a case; an element of force, but not of conciliation. The more reflective of my two Southern messmates, a man mature beyond his years, said to me sadly, "I suppose there will be bloodshed beyond what the world has known for a long time;" but he naturally shared the prevalent opinion--so often disproved--that a people resolute as he believed his own could not be conquered, especially by a commercial community--the proverbial "nation of shopkeepers." Napoleon once had believed the same, to his ruin. Commercial considerations undoubtedly weigh heavily; but happily sentiment is still stronger than the dollar. An amusing instance of the pocket influence, however, came to my knowledge at the moment. Our captain's son received notice of his appointment as lieutenant of marines, and sailed for home in an American merchant-brig shortly before the news came of the firing on Fort Sumter. When I next met him in the United States, he told me that the brig's captain had been quite warmly Southern in feeling during the passage; but when they reached home, and found that Confederate privateers had destroyed some merchant-vessels, he went entirely over. He had no use for people who would "rob a poor man of his ship and cargo."