The breaking out of the war found the Welds in deep family sorrow, watching anxiously by the sick bed of a dear son, with scarcely a hope of his recovery.  Of Sarah’s absolute devotion, of her ceaseless care by day, and her tireless watching by night, during the many long and weary months through which that precious life flickered, it is needless to speak.  She took the delicate mother’s place beside that bed of suffering, and, strong in her faith and hope, gave strength and hope to the heart-stricken parents, sustaining them when they were ready to sink beneath the avalanche of their woe.  And when at last, though life was spared, it was evident that the invalid must remain an invalid for a long time, perhaps forever, Sarah’s sublime courage stood steadfast.  There was no sign of faltering.  With a resignation almost cheerful, she took up her fresh burden, and, intent only on cheering her dear patient and comforting the sorrow of her sister and brother, she forgot her seventy-one years and every grief of the past.  “I try,” she writes, “to accept this, the most grinding and bitter dispensation of my checkered life, as what it must be, educational and disciplinary, working towards a better preparation for a higher life.”

Chiefly on account of this son and the quiet which was necessary for him, Mr. and Mrs. Weld gave up their position at Eagleswood, to the deep regret of all who knew them and had children to educate.  They settled themselves temporarily in a pleasant house in Perth Amboy.  Here, between nursing their sick, and working for the soldiers, they watched the progress of events which they had long foreseen were inevitable.

Sarah speaks of the war as a retribution.  “Hitherto,” she says, “we have never been a republic, but one of the blackest tyrannies that ever disgraced the earth.”

She calls attention to the fact that the South, by starting out with a definite and declared purpose, added much to its strength.  “In great revolutions,” she says, “confusion in popular ideas is fatal.  The South avoided this.  She set up one idea as paramount; she seized a great principle and uttered it.  She shouted the talismanic words, ‘Oppression and Liberty,’ and said, ’Let us achieve our purpose or die!’ The masses, blinded by falsehood, caught the spirit of the leaders, and verily believe they are struggling for freedom.  We have never enunciated any great truth as the cause of our uprising.  We have no great idea to rally around, and know not what we are fighting for.”

Later she expresses herself very strongly concerning the selfishness of the politicians, North and South.

“It is true there are some,” she writes, “who are waging this war to make our Declaration of Independence a fact; there is a glorious band who are fighting for human rights, but the government, with Lincoln at its head, has not a heart-throb for the slave.  I want the South to do her own work of emancipation.  She would do it only from dire necessity, but the North will do it from no higher motive, and the South will feel less exasperation if she does it herself.”