 In an 1866 letter to a former student he wrote that the war almost ruined him and that he had $30,000 in outstanding pre-war debt due from the parents of students from the former Confederacy.The riots in Baltimore in the spring of 1861, due to the passage of Union regiments through Baltimore on their way to Washington, caused the school to be closed for a time.In the fall of 1862, the 12th New Jersey Regiment camped near the school, and the PFI closed again.