In the transaction of business, Mr. White is not only methodical but positive. He reaches his conclusions quickly and acts upon them with the utmost directness. Having decided upon a measure he engages in it with all his might, bending all his efforts to make sure of the desired end. Selecting his agents, he accomplishes the whole work while many would be halting to determine whether the project was feasible. A man of so pronounced opinions and prompt action naturally makes some enemies; but he has no opponents who do not accord to him the credit of an open and honorable warfare. In a word, he is essentially a business man in the full sense of that term. Not only in occupation, but in taste and aptitude, he is a representative of that class of American citizens who have won a world-wide reputation for practical sagacity, enterprise, and thrift. Mr. White is in no sense of the word a party politician. Of Whig antecedents, his first vote was cast for Henry Clay, in 1844, for president. Before leaving his native town his liberal tendencies had been quickened by witnessing the unwarranted arrest, in the pulpit, of Rev. George Storrs, who was about to deliver the first anti-slavery lecture in Pittsfield. The event justly occasioned an unusual excitement, and was the beginning of that agitation which reached every town and hamlet in the Union. Since the organization of the Republican party, Mr. White has supported it in all national issues; but is one of the independent thinkers who does not hesitate to exercise "the divine right of bolting" when unfit men are put in nomination. In the winter of 1861, Mr. White and his family left on a southern trip, and reached Charleston, S. C., the last of February, not long after the United States troops under Maj. Anderson were shut up in Fort Sumter by the rebel forces. Mr. White had letters of introduction to several citizens of the city high in authority, who received him kindly, and, learning that he was a business man and not a politician, were anxious to learn from him the state of feeling among the business men and the middle class of citizens at the North. While the statements of Mr. White were far from gratifying, they continued their friendly relations. Previously he had written to his friend, Capt. John G. Foster, second in command at Fort Sumter, of his intended tarry at Charleston. He was now desirous of an interview with him. Applying to the Confederate authorities for a pass to Fort Sumter, it was granted him,--a privilege not allowed to any other civilian during the siege.