A sudden fit of sickness had hindered Willis’s plan to follow the army to Bull Run--fortunately, no doubt, as the correspondent who took his place was made prisoner. He afterwards took horseback rides into the enemy’s country, once narrowly escaping capture near Mount Vernon, and made excursions to Fortress Monroe, Manassas, Old Point Comfort, etc. On March 15, 1862, he was of the party which visited Harper’s Ferry at the invitation of the president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Hawthorne, too, was of the party and reported the occasion in his article, “Chiefly about War Matters,” in the July “Atlantic” of that year. “Hawthorne is shy and reserved,” wrote Willis in one of his letters to his wife, “but I found he was a lover of mine, and we enjoyed our acquaintance very much.” Emerson and Curtis lectured in Washington while Willis was there, and Greeley dined with him in January, 1862. The novelty and excitement of life at the capital were agreeable at first, but he soon grew homesick and pined for his beloved Idlewild. In consequence of the war, the circulation of the “Home Journal,” a large proportion of whose subscribers were in the South, had fallen off seriously. Willis found himself greatly straitened, and was obliged to close his country house for a time. Mrs. Willis and the children had spent the winter and spring of 1861-62 at New Bedford, with her father. In April she rented Idlewild and went with her family to pass the summer at Campton, near Plymouth, New Hampshire. In June Willis left Washington and joined her at Campton for a few days, and then returned to New York and took lodgings for himself. Morris’s health had grown so feeble that it became necessary for his partner to apply himself more closely to the management of the paper and do double work. He had been much opposed to the renting of Idlewild, and it troubled him to think of the place in the hands of strangers. He paid it a visit in August, by invitation of his tenant, a Mr. Dennis, and was very hospitably treated. In the autumn of the following year (1863) Mrs. Willis opened at Idlewild a little school for girls, in the hope of persuading her husband to leave New York and come home for life. He appreciated her energy and devotion,--shown through long years of failing health and fortune,--but he doomed himself to homeless exile, and refused to abandon his post. He was opposed to the school project, as he had been to the renting of Idlewild, unreasonably, no doubt, since something of the kind had to be done. But it touched his pride, and with increasing illness there grew upon him a morbid horror of dependence on any one. He fancied that he could work better in his New York lodgings. By 1864, moreover, Morris had become quite imbecile, and the responsibilities of editorship weighed more and more heavily on Willis. He remained at New York, therefore, running up to Idlewild for an occasional visit of a day or two, over Sunday, or sometimes for a week at a time.