ing I made him go to some place of amusement with me. I had
no other business, and meant to have none, but to take care of Henry,
and I devoted myself wholly to his comfort and happiness. In a few days
he had much improved in health and spirits, so much so, that I meditated
making a long tour with him to the South, hoping that the journey there
and back again would fully restore him.

Fortunately, my recent Maine business had put me in possession of
abundant funds, and when I had matured my scheme, and saw that Henry
was in tolerable condition to travel, I proposed the trip to him, and he
joyfully assented to my plan. I wanted to get him far away, for awhile,
from a part of the country which was associated in his mind, more than
in mine, with so much misery, and he seemed quite as eager to go. Change
of air and scene I knew would do wonders for him bodily, and would build
him up again.

We made our preparations and started for the South, going first to
Baltimore and then on through the Southern States by railroad to New
Orleans. It was late in the fall of 1860, just before the rebellion,
when the south was seceding or talking secession, and was already
preparing for war. Henry's physical condition compelled us to rest
frequently on the way, and we stopped sometimes for two or three days
at a time, at nearly every large town or city on the entire route.
Everywhere there was a great deal of excitement; meetings were held
nearly every night secession was at fever heat, and there was an
unbounded expression and manifestation of ill-feeling against the north
and against northern men. Nevertheless, I was never in any part of
the Union where I was treated with so much courtesy, consideration and
genuine kindness as I was there and then. I was going south, simply to
benefit the invalid who accompanied me; everybody seemed to know it;
and everybody expressed the tenderest sympathy for my son. Wherever we
stopped, it seemed as if the people at the hotels, from the landlord
to the lowest servant, could not do enough for us. At Atlanta, Augusta,
Mobile, and other places, where we made our stay long enough to get a
little acquainted, my son and myself were daily taken out to ride, and
were shown everything of interest that was to be seen. Henry did not
enjoy this journey more than I did--to me as well as to him, the trip
was one prolonged pleasure, and by the time we reached New Orleans
nearly a month after we left New York, my son