e firing. The sun as it sank reddened the battle
cloud that by now had blotted out the balloons. "When it is dark," said
the soldier, "it will be like fireworks." An hour later the man with the
glass discovered a string of wagons on one of the roads. It was coming
citywards. "Ambulances!" he said, in a shaking voice.

"Ambulances--ambulances--" The word went through the crowd like a sigh.
It broke the spell. Most on the hillside might have an interest there.
Parents, wives, brothers, sisters, children, they rose, they went away
in the twilight like blown leaves. The air was rocking; orange and red
lights began to show as the shells exploded. Christianna put her hand on
Miriam's. "Miss Miriam--Miss Miriam! Mrs. Cleave'll say I didn't take
care of you. Let's go--let's go. They're bringing back the wounded. Pap
might be there or Dave or Billy or--Miss Miriam, Miss Miriam, your
brother might be there."

The long June dusk melted into night, and still the city shook to the
furious cannonading. With the dark it saw, as it had not seen in the
sunshine. As the soldier said, it was like fireworks.

Beginning at twilight, the wagons with the wounded came all night long.
Ambulances, farm wagons, carts, family carriages, heavy-laden, they
rumbled over the cobblestones with the sound of the tumbrels in the
Terror. It was stated that a number of the wounded were in the field
hospitals. In the morning the knowledge was general that very many had
lain, crying for water, all night in the slashing before Beaver Dam
Creek.

All the houses in Richmond were lighted. Through the streets poured a
tide of fevered life. News--News--News!--demanded from chance couriers,
from civilian spectators of the battle arriving pale and exhausted, from
the drivers of wagon, cart, and carriage, from the less badly
wounded--"Ours the victory--is it not? is it not?--Who led?--who
fought?--who is fighting now? Jackson came? Jackson certainly came? We
are winning--are we not? are we not?" Suspense hung palpable in the hot
summer night, suspense, exaltation, fever. It breathed in the hot wind,
it flickered in the lights, it sounded in the voice of the river. For
many there sounded woe as well--woe and wailing for the dead. For
others, for many, many others, there was a misery of searching, a
heart-breaking going from hospital to hospital. "Is he here?--Are they
here?" The cannon stopped at nine o'clock.

The Stonewall Hospital was poorly lighted. In ward nu