Page:Memoir of George B. Wood, M. D., LL.D.djvu/30

 widow of Michaux, to carry out, as desired, some of the required arrangements.

Our great civil war was going on during the last absence of Dr. Wood in Europe. Every mail brought news of battles, sometimes with reverses and sometimes successes, of the Union arms. So patriotic a man could not fail to be much moved by these events; and his Journal has many pages filled with reflections upon them, and the expression of his anxious solicitude for his country during its perils. There is interest in these expressions, as those of a sagacious man, looking forward as well as backward, at the career of this great Republic, then passing through its ordeal of fire. In 1861, he was, with others, much exercised about the possibility, at one time threatening, of Great Britain interfering to the advantage of the Secessionists. He predicts as the result of such an unwarranted action, certain disaster, if not ruin, to England; through advantage being taken by France, under Napoleon III., of the opportunity thus afforded to provoke new conflicts, not improbably ending in a general European war.

Confidently anticipating, at the beginning of 1862, the final, if not speedy triumph of the forces of the Union, he saw very distinctly at that period, the later prospect, which he indicated in these words: "But the problem appears to me much more difficult, what is to be done with the South when conquered, than will be the task of conquest." The plan which he favored