There was a vacation from August 1st to November 1st, and Sherman went North, to New York, to purchase additional supplies for the school, and then to Lancaster to visit his family, who had remained there pending the construction of a suitable house at Alexandria. He also went to Washington and influenced the War Department to grant to the school a supply of muskets and other accoutrements for the military drill. Returning to Alexandria in October he went to work with great energy to get the new buildings ready for the opening of the school on November 1st. On the latter date about one hundred and thirty cadets were present, and the work of the school was resumed. Sherman's house was now ready, and he moved into it. He did not, however, send for his family because serious storms were visible in the political skies. The presidential campaign then closing had been unprecedentedly bitter, and it was evident that the election of the Republican candidate would immediately be followed by the most extreme measures on the part of the South. Sherman took no part in the political discussion, although his associates tried to force him into it. On election day he was openly told that it would be advisable for him to vote for Bell and Everett, that being the Presidential ticket most in favor in Louisiana. "I openly said I would not," says Sherman, "and I did not." Lincoln was elected and the event startled the South. It was recognized there at once that extension of the slave power into the territories was impossible in the future, and that therefore the future growth of the nation would be in the direction of free soil and free men. The most incendiary and revolutionary talk was heard everywhere. Sherman kept quietly at his work, but he noticed that his cadets began taking their declamations from the speeches of Calhoun, Yancey and other Southern extremists, selecting especially passages in defence of slavery and in praise of State rights. No one ventured, however, to approach him upon the subject, although his opinions were pretty generally understood, namely, that secession was treason and treason meant war. When President Buchanan announced in his annual message to Congress, in December, 1860, that the General Government had no power to prevent a State from seceding, Sherman was startled and began to fear the dissolution of the Union.