Taken by the Enemy

oming events had been heard in the United States; and it had been an open question wh

ormed in regard to the progress of political events at home. Captain Passford was one of those who confidently believed that no very serious

s departure he had scouted the idea of a conflict with arms between the

vast fortune after he abandoned the sea. His father was an Englishman, who had come to the Uni

y a son and a daughter. While Horatio had been remarkably successful in his pursuit of wealth in the metropolis, he had kept himself clean

d a plantation in Alabama, where both of his children had been born, and where he was a man of high standing, with wea

and each made occasional visits to the other, though the distance which separated them was

the opinions of Horatio, for to him hostilities meant making war upon his only brother, whom h

felt as he felt, war would have been an impossibility, however

n thousands who came out of Plymouth Rock stock; and he believed in the union of the States,

ls of the bombardment and capture of Fort Sumter; and the others, a record of the events whi

s he had, in the impossibility of war; and it seemed to him just as though he and

acht cruise, but his brother, perhaps because he was fully instructed in regard to the U

ersuaded that Homer was as sound on the great question as he was himself, though the e

ul young lady of seventeen, to reside during the winter in a hot-bed of secession and disunion. The papers informed him what had been done at the

s son to her in her hour of need, he felt that his first duty was to his own family, within reasonable limits; and his

nced so briefly the situation which had caused such intens

of the same household!" replied the husband impressively. "Both the North and the South are sounding the notes of prepara

?" asked the anxious wife and mother; and her thoughts, like those of

l be over till one side or the other shall be exhausted," replied Captain Passford, wiping from his brow the per

erstand it,"

isty, who had been an interested l

war which cannot be carried to a conclusion by hirelings; but father,

with something like a shudder, though she was a st

since he had received his latest papers at Bermuda. They listened with the most intense interest, and the tr

not regard it as a trivial conflict which would be ended in a few weeks or a few months. To him it was the most terrible reality which

dy arming for the conflict," said Mrs. Passford, after she h

nts as soon as Fort Sumter fell. Doubtless the South is better prepared for the event to-day than the North, tho

gathering armies of the South," added the

home, she may have to remain in the enemy's country for months, if no

done?" asked the

e the thought of leaving her even a single month at any point which is as likely as any other to become a battle-field in a f

aid the terrified mother, as she gazed earnestly into t

do for his own children, but he may not long be a

ill be in any actua

he same circumstances. From the nature of the case, the burden of the fighting, the havoc and desolation, will be within t

the residence of your brother, they are ne

e brute nature of most men, and there will be brutes and

ither side in the political conflict; and in those which came to us at the Azores and Bermuda, he did not say a s

I can be no wiser than you are on this point, th

s your

truly a Union

lad tha

now of him, I think he is. And it is as much a part of my desire and intention t

dale this summer?" suggested Mrs. Pas

dentified with the institutions of that locality, as I have been with those of the North. Though we both love the land of our fathers on the other side of the ocean, we have bot

, but I am grievously sorry

, Captain Passford,

levite wished the tu