the discussions partook of no extraordinary bitterness. The vote of
the city was decidedly in favor of keeping the State in the Union.

Between the 7th of December and the 12th of April, the Northern blood
warmed slowly. The first gun at Sumter quickened its pulsations. When
the President issued his call for seventy-five thousand men for three
months, to put down insurrection, the North woke to action. Everywhere
the response was prompt, earnest, patriotic. In the Northern
cities the recruiting offices were densely thronged. New York and
Massachusetts were first to send their favorite regiments to the
front, but they were not long in the advance. Had the call been for
four times seventy-five thousand, and for a service of three years,
there is little doubt the people would have responded without
hesitation.

For a short time after my arrival at the East, I remained in a small
town in Southern New Hampshire. A few days after the first call was
issued, a friend invited me to a seat in his carriage for a ride to
Portsmouth, the sea-port of the State. On reaching the city we found
the war spirit fully aroused. Two companies of infantry were drilling
in the public square, and the citizens were in a state of great
excitement. In the course of the afternoon my friend and myself were
arrested, by a committee of respectable citizens, who suspected us of
being Southern emissaries. It was with great difficulty we convinced
them they had made a slight mistake. We referred them to the only
acquaintances we had in the city. They refused to consider the truth
established in the mouths of two witnesses, and were not induced to
give us our liberty until all convenient proof of our identity had
been adduced.