Brother Harry, a child of eleven, wrote an indignant letter, after the capture of John Brown, to Governor Wise of Virginia. As it was couched in abusive terms, I fear it was never mailed. Since few of our young mates agreed with us in opinion, we had many arguments. In the early days one of our friends at the Stevenson School laughingly called us “Little Free-dirters,” because we belonged to the Free Soil party. As events moved rapidly forward feeling grew more intense. We were very indignant at the deadly assault in the Senate Chamber upon our friend, Charles Sumner. As he sat pinioned down by his desk, and so unable to rise, blows with a loaded cane were showered upon his head. Some of the girls of our acquaintance sought to justify the attack. We countered with the testimony of Henry Wilson (later Vice-President of the United States), who had witnessed the scene where a colleague of Preston Brooks stood guard, a pistol in either hand, to prevent any interference in behalf of Sumner. For a long time, the victim’s life was in danger. His seat in the Senate remained “eloquently empty” for three years. Yet Charles Sumner lived to see slavery overthrown and the United States a free country. Within a year his young assailant died of membranous croup. It was thought that remorse for his brutal deed hastened his death. We children heard of Sumner’s great sufferings, and of the cruel “Mochsa” treatment—the burning of his back. In the Presidential election of 1856 we were greatly interested. I remember a political procession in which a dead deer was borne aloft with the device, “Old Buck Is Dead.” The result of the election was not certain for some time. We held on to hope as long as we could. From California no word could come for ten days! I asked my father whether the result there might not change the result. He said, “No. There is enough to settle the hash without California.” James Buchanan, the last President of the slavery era, had indeed been elected. My father was deeply interested in the struggle for freedom in Kansas. When the colonists from the free states were almost overpowered by the border ruffians, he again called a Faneuil Hall meeting where money was raised and sent to help the settlers. He himself went out there, with great risk to his life. In the spring of 1857 my mother and I accompanied him on one of his trips to Kansas, but, as I became ill at Louisville, he went on without us. Part of our journey was made on the large steamboats of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Great was the horror of the other women when my mother took out a pack of cards to amuse me. This was owing to the prevalence of gambling in that section of the country. Many years later, in traveling through the Middle West, I found this prejudice had not wholly died out.