They would surely have resisted secession could they have lived to see the shape it assumed.
I travelled through the Northwest considerably during the winter of 1860-1.

We had customers in all the little towns in south-west Wisconsin, south-east Minnesota and north-east Iowa.

These generally knew I had been a captain in the regular army and had served through the Mexican war.

Consequently wherever I stopped at night, some of the people would come to the public-house where I was, and sit till a late hour discussing the probabilities of the future.

My own views at that time were like those officially expressed by Mr.Seward at a later day, that "the war would be over in ninety days." I continued to entertain these views until after the battle of Shiloh.