Sarah and her family moved back and forth from Baton Rouge to the nearby countryside during the Civil War while Caroline and her grandparents and her younger sister Anna in stayed in Canandaigua, New York.
Sarah did not like President Lincoln because she was a strong supporter of the Confederacy. Caroline was taught by her Puritan grandmother about the necessity of ending slavery and how shock they were to learn of Lincoln's assassination.
Sarah had three brothers who joined the Confederacy and two of them were killed. Caroline's brothers did not go to war.
Sarah, her mother, and her sisters suffered the threats of war and had to seek shelter in friends' homes while Caroline's life was more peaceful.
