 He had made great headway with the preparation of a life of Luther, when in 1861 his manuscript and library were destroyed by fire.During the American Civil War his sympathies were with the South, and the end of the struggle found him rector of a parish in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he stayed during an epidemic of cholera which decimated his congregation.He was made secretary to the Provincial Councils of Baltimore of 1855 and 1858; also secretary in chief at the Second Plenary Council of 1866.