Seven southern states had seceded from the Union by Feb. 1, 1861, and formed the Confederate States of America. On April 12, Confederate shore batteries in Charleston Harbor opened fire on Fort Sumter. After 34 hours of bombardment, the fort surrendered. On April 15, President Lincoln declared that "insurrection" existed and called for volunteers. With this pronouncement of the American Civil War, Lincoln introduced all 19th-century Americans to the event that would inexorably alter their lives. In Ithaca as elsewhere, there were meetings, rallies and enlistment drives. The Cornell family was caught up in the war effort. Ezra Cornell headed a citizens' committee to organize aid for the dependents of volunteers and personally subscribed $1,000. Mary Ann Cornell was president of the Ladies' Volunteer Aid Association.

In mid-July, as a member of the Volunteer Aid Committee, Ezra took medical supplies to Washington, D.C. Refused a pass through the lines to the main camp of the Union Army, the group went to Alexandria and joined a troop train to Fairfax Station. Setting out on foot for the front, they found themselves at the first battle of Bull Run, an adventure Ezra recounted in a letter to the Ithaca Journal. He remained in Washington, visiting hospitals and traveling to the camp where the Tompkins County volunteers were stationed.

While in Europe at the International Exposition in 1862, Cornell sponsored the passage of four volunteers who were anxious to join the Union Army. Many of his relatives served in the army. His younger brother Daniel was wounded while with Grant's army at Vicksburg, and his nephew Irving died of wounds received in battle. As a state legislator, Cornell received letters from constituents requesting his assistance in obtaining promotions for local officers. Throughout the war, he continued to visit the wounded and to aid soldiers and their families.

-- Adapted by Susan S. Lang from the Web site "Invention and Enterprise: Ezra Cornell, a Nineteenth-Century Life."