Why did theodore upson fathers face turn white

Theodore was with his father picking up some corn when William Cory crossed the field and told Theodore's father: Jonathan the Rebs shot and took Fort Sumpter, he got very white and could not say anything, they did not finish their labors and they left to home. They told the grandmother and she cried saying that her poor children would suffer to the south and that she already knew that this would happen.

for example: in, he, a,from

where is the poem at?