Taken by the Enemy | Page 5

his two sons, and died in the city of
New York.
These two sons, Horatio and Homer, were respectively forty-five and
forty years of age. Both of them were married, and each of them had
only a son and a daughter. While Horatio had been remarkably
successful in his pursuit of wealth in the metropolis, he had kept
himself clean and honest, like so many of the wealthy men of the great
city. When he retired from active business, he settled at Bonnydale on
the Hudson.
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 succeeding days after the news of actual war reached the North.
This terrible intelligence was unexpected to the owner of the yacht,
believing, as he had, in the impossibility of war; and it seemed to him
just as though he and his cherished brother were already arrayed against
each other on the battle-field.
The commotion between the two sections had begun before his
departure from home on the yacht cruise, but his brother, perhaps
because he was fully instructed in regard to the Union sentiment of
Horatio, was strangely reticent, and expressed no opinions of his own.
But Captain Passford, measuring his brother according to his own
standard, was fully persuaded that Homer was as sound on the great
question as he was himself, though the excitement and violence around
him might have caused him to maintain a neutral position.
Certainly if the Northern brother had anticipated that a terrible war was
impending, he would not have permitted his daughter Florence, a
beautiful 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 North and at the South to initiate the war; and the
thought that Florry was now in the midst of the enemies of her country
was agonizing to him.
Though he felt that his country demanded his best energies, and though
he was ready and willing to give himself and his son to her in her hour
of need, he felt that his first duty was to his own family, within
reasonable limits; and his earliest thoughts were directed to the safety
of his daughter, and then to the welfare of his brother and his family.
"War!" exclaimed Mrs. Passford, when her husband had announced so
briefly the situation which had caused such intense agitation in his soul.

"What do you mean by war, Horatio?"
"I mean all that terrible word can convey of destruction and death, and,
worse yet, of hate and revenge between brothers of the same
household!" replied the husband impressively. "Both the North and the
South are sounding the notes of preparation. Men are gathering by
thousands on both sides, soon to meet on fields which must be
drenched in the gore of brothers."
"But don't you think the trouble will be settled in some way, Horatio?"
asked the anxious wife and mother; and her thoughts, like those of her
husband, reverted to the loving daughter then in the enemy's camp.
"I do not think so; that is impossible now. I did not believe that war was
possible: now I do not believe it will be over till