many soldiers and ever so many variants of the story.
The dead bore witness, and the wailing of women which was now and then
heard in the streets; not often, for the women were mostly silent, with
pressed lips. And the ambulances jolting by--and the sound of
funerals--and the church bells tolling, tolling--all these bore witness.
And day and night there was the thunder of the cannon. From
Mechanicsville and Gaines's Mill it had rolled near and loud, from
Savage Station somewhat less so; White Oak Swamp and Frayser's Farm had
carried the sound yet further off, and from Malvern Hill it came but
distantly. But loud or low, near or far, day by day and into each night,
Richmond heard the cannon. At first the vibration played on the town's
heart, like a giant hand on giant strings. But at last the tune grew old
and the town went about its business. There was so much to do! One could
not stop to listen to cannon. Richmond was a vast hospital; pain and
fever in all places, and, around, the shadow of death. Hardly a house
but mourned a kinsman or kinsmen; early and late the dirges wailed
through the streets. So breathlessly filled were the days, that often
the dead were buried at night. The weather was hot--days and nights hot,
close and still. Men and women went swiftly through them, swift and
direct as weavers' shuttles. Privation, early comrade of the South, was
here; scant room, scant supplies, not too much of wholesome food for the
crowded town, few medicines or alleviatives, much to be done and done
at once with the inadequatest means. There was little time in which to
think in general terms; all effort must go toward getting done the
immediate thing. The lift and tension of the time sloughed off the
immaterial weak act or thought. There were present a heroic simplicity,
a naked verity, a full cup of service, a high and noble altruism. The
plane was epic, and the people did well.

The sky within Allan's range of vision was deep blue; the old brick
gable-ends of houses, mellow and old, against it. A soldier with a
broken leg and a great sabre cut over the head, just brought into the
ward, brought with him the latest news. He talked loudly, and all down
the long room, crowded to suffocation, the less desperately wounded
raised themselves on their elbows to hear. Others, shot through stomach
or bowels, or fearfully torn by shells, or with the stumps of amputated
limbs not doing well, raved on in delirium or kept up their pitif