“None of us could exactly approve an act so revolutionary in its character, yet the great-hearted attempt enlisted our sympathies very strongly. The weeks of John Brown’s imprisonment were very sad ones, and the day of his death was one of general mourning in New England.”[16] With the election of Lincoln we seemed to come to smoother times. We young people certainly did not realize that we were on the brink of civil war, although friends who had visited the South warned us of the preparations going on there. If there should be any struggle, it would be a brief one, people said. Suddenly, like a flash of lightning out of a clear sky, came the firing on Sumter. My father came triumphantly into the nursery and called out to his children: “Sumter has been fired upon! That’s the death-blow of slavery.” Little did he or we realize how long and terrible the conflict would be. But he knew that the serpent had received its death-wound. All through the long and terrible war he cheered my mother by his unyielding belief in the ultimate success of our arms. So the prelude ended and the greater tragedy began. The conflict of ideas, the most soul-stirring period of our history, passed into the conflict of arms. In the midst of its agony the steadfast soul of a woman saw the presage of victory and gave the message, a message never to be forgotten, to her people and to the world. III MRS. HOWE VISITS THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC The Civil War breaks out--Dr. Howe is appointed a member of the Sanitary Commission--Mrs. Howe accompanies him to Washington--She makes her maiden speech to a Massachusetts regiment--She sees the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps--She visits the army and her carriage is involved in a military movement--She is surrounded by “Burnished rows of steel.” “The years between 1850 and 1857, eventful as they were, appear to me almost a period of play when compared with the time of trial which was to follow. It might have been likened to the tuning of instruments before some great musical solemnity. The theme was already suggested, but of its wild and terrible development who could have had any foreknowledge?” In her _Reminiscences_ my mother thus compares the Civil War and its prelude. Again she says of the former: “Its cruel fangs fastened upon the very heart of Boston and took from us our best and bravest. From many a stately mansion father or son went forth, followed by weeping, to be brought back for bitterer sorrow.” Mercifully she was spared this last. My father was too old for military service and no longer in vigorous health, being in his sixtieth year when the war broke out; my eldest brother was just thirteen years of age. Nevertheless she was brought into close touch with the activities of the great struggle from the beginning. On the day when the news of the attack on Fort Sumter was received Dr. Howe wrote to Governor Andrew, offering his services: