1880.] -'-'*-»- [Hartshorne. 



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 for- 

 ward as well as backward, at the career of this great 

 Republic, then passing through its ordeal of fire. In 

 1 86 1, 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 ad- 

 vantage being taken by France, under Napoleon III., 

 of the opportunity thus afforded to provoke new con- 

 flicts, 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 



