8 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



a worker, maintained a good standard of scholarship, read 

 a good deal and to the purpose, and when the time came, 

 took up one study that was to be a great service to him in 

 after life, the study of botany. During the Freshman year 

 he accepted an invitation to become a member of the Psi 

 Upsilon Fraternity. The spirit of Fraternity seems to have 

 been in accord with his nature, as he took a personal inter- 

 est, not only in his associate members but in the new mem- 

 bers, long after he left college. 



During the last years of his college life the great storm 

 that had long been gathering burst suddenly upon the 

 country. By a cannon shot in the harbor of Charleston, 

 South Carolina, the great issue between free and slave labor, 

 involving the preservation of the Union, was brought into 

 the court of last resort. In this great contest, which grew 

 greater as it went on, until it assumed proportions perhaps 

 up to that time unsurpassed in the history of mankind, 

 Goodell took a deep interest. It seemed to him to involve 

 the highest interests of civilization and all that he held dear. 

 He said but little, but evidently thought a great deal as to 

 his duty. The following letter addressed to his brother-in- 

 law, Mr. James Bird of Hartford, Connecticut, will give 

 his own account of his feelings. It was written more than 

 five months after the Massachusetts troops went through 

 Baltimore, and two months after the first battle of Bull 

 Run, which General Sherman declared "one of the best- 

 planned battles of the war, but one of the worst fought." 

 He had had plenty of time to think. 



