His brother had been less successful as a business-man, and soon
after his marriage to a Northern lady he had purchased a plantation in
Alabama, where both of his children had been born, and where he was a
man of high standing, with wealth enough to maintain his position in
luxury, though his fortune was insignificant compared with that of his
brother.

Between the two brothers and their families the most kindly relations
had always existed; and each made occasional visits to the other, though
the distance which separated them was too great to permit of very
frequent exchanges personally of brotherly love and kindness.

Possibly the fraternal feeling which subsisted between the two brothers
had some influence upon the opinions of Horatio, for to him hostilities
meant making war upon his only brother, whom he cherished as warmly as
if they had not been separated by a distance of over a thousand miles.

He measured the feelings of others by his own; and if all had felt as
he felt, war would have been an impossibility, however critical and
momentous the relations between the two sections.

Though his father had been born and bred in England, Horatio was more
intensely American than thousands who came out of Plymouth Rock stock;
and he believed in the union of the States, unable to believe that any
true citizen could tolerate the idea of a separation of any kind.

The first paper which Captain Passford read on the deck of the Bellevite
contained the details of the bombardment and capture of Fort Sumter; and
the others, a record of the events which had transpired in the few