New York Herald
April 28, 1861
The Fireman Zouaves, under the command of Col. Ellsworth, did not leave the city yesterday, as announced, in consequence of the men not being fully armed and equipped. Large delegations of the Fire Departments of this city, Brooklyn and Jersey city, assembled to take leave of their comrades, but from the cause above stated were disappointed. It is now positively announced that they will leave for the seat of war today.
Mr. C. J. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, has suggested that Ex-Presidents Buchanan, Pierce, Fillmore, Tyler and Van Buren, become arbitrators to settle the existing difficulties between the North and South.
By a despatch from Annapolis we learn that on Saturday night the Tenth Company of the Eighth Massachusetts regiment, in a steamtug, cut out the receiving ship Alleghany in Baltimore harbor, and placed her under the guns of Fort McHenry.
The war was the topic discussed in every pulpit of the city yesterday, and the clergy of all denominations, in their prayers, offered up a petition that the horrors of war might be softened, if not averted. In consequence of the pressure upon our columns, we are compelled to exclude all the reports of sermons. Rev. Mathew Hale Smith, Chaplain of the Twelfth regiment, who sent with the regiment, and returned in the Baltic, preached in the chapel Thirty fourth street and Broadway. Impressive religious services were held at the camp, in Castle Garden, yesterday. Among the preachers on the war was the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, of Boston, before the Second Unitarian Congregational Society, at the chapel, corner of Clinton and Congress streets. The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher preached a sermon in favor of sustaining the Union and constitution. In stirring terms he called upon his congregation to uphold the government, and suggested that the Plymouth church volunteers should be effectively armed with revolvers.