Business was going on in New Orleans as usual. The Louisiana State flag was flying over all the Federal buildings and elsewhere throughout the city, and along the river ships displayed every flag on earth except the Stars and Stripes. Everybody seemed to regard the change of government as complete and final, and believed that secession would be quietly acquiesced in by the nation, although men were steadily being enlisted and armed to defend the State. Amid such scenes, on February 25th, Sherman bade farewell to his friends, and set out for his old home at Lancaster. The Alexandria Seminary was broken up by the war. All the faculty and students joined the Rebel army excepting two professors and one student. Sherman met several of his former associates during the war, and for many years after the war maintained a friendly acquaintance with them. The Seminary was re-organized in 1865, but a few years later was totally destroyed by fire. Governor Moore's plantation was laid waste during the war, and Sherman was afterward of great service to him in regaining possession of his property. [Illustration: HON. JOHN SHERMAN] CHAPTER VI. THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR. THE SOUTH EXCITED AND READY--THE NORTH INDIFFERENT AND UNPREPARED--SHERMAN'S INTERVIEW WITH LINCOLN--HIS PLAIN TALK TO HIS BROTHER--DISGUSTED WITH THE POLITICIANS--A ST. LOUIS STREET RAILROAD PRESIDENT--WAR TALK IN ST. LOUIS--A CLERKSHIP DECLINED--HIS LOYALTY DOUBTED--PROPHESYING A GREAT STRUGGLE-- BLOODSHED IN ST. LOUIS--BACK TO WASHINGTON--IN SERVICE AT LAST. It is not easy to imagine a greater difference between two sections of one nation than existed between the North and South in the early months of 1861. In both, the same great topic overshadowed all other interests; and both enjoyed full information concerning it. Both, indeed, were deeply and equally concerned in the settlement of the great controversy that was already convulsing the nation. Yet the sentiment that prevailed in the one section varied as widely from that in the other as though they were situated upon different planets. In Louisiana, before he left that State, and in the other parts of the South through which he travelled on his way to the North, Sherman found everywhere the keenest public interest in the impending conflict, which was, then and there, seen to be inevitable. Preparation was being feverishly pushed on every hand. States were seceding. Federal forts, arsenals and other property was being confiscated. Federal officers were proving recreant to their trusts, and were casting in their lot with the insurgents. Politicians were preaching secession, and the public heart was rapidly being fired with the same unholy flame.