eed to the
spot. He accordingly hoisted his flag on a small steamer and ran down to
the James; but, finding upon his arrival that the enemy had been
repulsed, and satisfactory measures taken to prevent a renewal of the
effort, he returned to Washington. This slight episode concluded his
active service in the war.

When Richmond was evacuated on the 2d of April, 1865, Farragut was among
the first to visit the fallen capital of the Confederacy. From there a
few days later he visited his old home in Norfolk. Many of his former
friends still retained strong feelings of resentment against him, as a
Southern man who had taken arms against the South. The impression had
obtained among some that, though leaving his old home, he would remain
neutral; and it was even reported that he had said he would take no part
in the war. That Farragut never passed through that phase of feeling, in
the struggle between life-long affections and the sense of duty, would
be too much to affirm; but it was a position in which a man of his
decided and positive character could not have stopped when civil strife
was upon the land. It was inconsistent with his general habits of
thought; and it is evident that, before leaving Norfolk, his convictions
on the particular crisis had already left far behind any such temporary
halting place between two opinions. When he justified to his excited
neighbors President Lincoln's call for troops, on the ground that the
United States Government could do no less, when its arsenals and navy
yards were seized and its flag fired upon, it is inconceivable that the
man who then had such courage of his opinions entertained any further
doubt as to his future course; though it may well be that he did not
imperil his personal liberty and safety by any irritating avowal of his
purpose. In a reception given to him, when he thus revisited the place
which should no longer be his home, he recalled those days and said: "I
was told by a brother officer that the State had seceded, and that I
must either resign and turn traitor to the Government which had
supported me from my childhood, or I must leave this place. Thank God! I
was not long in making my decision. I have spent half my life in
revolutionary countries, and I know the horrors of civil war, and I told
the people what I had seen and what they would experience. They laughed
at me, and called me 'granny' and 'croaker'; and I said: 'I can not live
here, and will seek some other