the Secessionists. I am not a man for war and am averse to its horrors and bloodshed; but I Was deeply moved at the scenes I witnessed on the day of my landing on the shores of my once happy and beloved adopted country. I prayed and prayed most earnestly, that the Lord in his mercy might allay and soften the rising passions, and that peace might again be restored in this now distracted land."
Father De Smet went directly to St. Louis and he notes that " on the long stretch of over a thousand miles nothing was heard but the clang of arms and the war cry repeated in every city, town, and hamlet; while from every house and spire, and on every mountain top and hill, and in every breeze, waved the insulted Stars and Stripes."
Father De Smet was a loyal citizen, a Union man; but he was not what he later calls a radical. His views were doubtless modified by the atmosphere of St. Louis, which was his home, and he saw more clearly the other side of the question than people of the North generally did. His prayers were for peace, but as between the North and South his sympathies were with the North. At one time he frankly doubted that the North would succeed, for he felt that so great a section of people of the Anglo-Saxon race could not be subdued. As the war progressed and the power of the North became more autocratic, he dissented from some of its extreme measures; but there was never a shadow of doubt of his unswerving loyalty to the Government.
A matter growing out of the war that gave the Jesuits considerable trouble was the draft, which made no exception in favor of the clerical profession. The Jesuits were few in number, and in addition to their priestly duties nearly all of them were teachers in institutions of learning. The Society was poor and had no funds to hire substitutes for their priests either in the field or in the schools. Besides this, they were on principle opposed to war, so that on the whole the situation was a trying one. Father De Smet went to Washington, saw President Lin-