Page "Nathaniel Parker Willis" Paragraph 29

In July 1860, Willis took his last major trip.

Along with his wife, he stopped in Chicago and Yellow Springs, Ohio, as far west as Madison, Wisconsin, and also took a steamboat down the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Missouri, and returned through Cincinnati, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In 1861, Willis allowed the Home Journal to break its pledge to avoid taking sides in political discussions when the Confederate States of America was established, calling the move a purposeful act to bring on war.

On May 28, 1861, Willis was part of a committee of literary figures — including William Cullen Bryant, Charles Anderson Dana, and Horace Greeley — to invite Edward Everett to speak in New York on behalf of maintaining the Union.

The Home Journal lost many subscribers during the American Civil War, Morris died in 1864, and the Willis family had to take in boarders and for a time turned Idlewild into a girls ' school for income.