Farragut was now nearly forty years of age; never pushing himself forward, honors had come slowly. Three years later, having been made commandant, he married Miss Virginia Royall, also of Norfolk, Va. At the beginning of the Mexican War, he offered his services to the Government, but from indifference, or the jealousy of officials, he was not called upon. The next twelve years were spent, partly in the Norfolk Navy Yard, giving weekly lectures on gunnery, preparing a book on ordnance regulations, and establishing a navy yard on the Pacific Coast. Whatever he did was done thoroughly and faithfully. When asked by the Navy Department to express a preference about a position, he said, "I have no volition in the matter; your duty is to give me orders, mine to obey.... I have made it the rule of my life to ask no official favors, but to await orders and then obey them." And now came the turning-point of his life. April 17, 1860, Virginia, by a vote of eighty-eight to fifty-five, seceded from the United States. The next morning, Farragut, then at Norfolk, expressed disapproval of the acts of the convention, and said President Lincoln would be justified in calling for troops after the Southerners had taken forts and arsenals. He was soon informed "that a person with those sentiments could not live in Norfolk." "Well then, I can live somewhere else," was the calm reply. Returning home, he announced to his wife that he had determined to "stick to the flag." "This act of mine may cause years of separation from your family; so you must decide quickly whether you will go North or remain here." She decided at once to go with him, and, hastily collecting a few articles, departed that evening for Baltimore. That city was in commotion, the Massachusetts troops having had a conflict with the mob. He finally secured passage for New York on a canal-boat, and with limited means rented a cottage at Hastings-on-the-Hudson, for one hundred and fifty dollars a year. He loved the South, and said, "God forbid that I should have to raise my hand against her"; but he was anxious to take part in the war for the Union, and offered his services to that end.