"But if it is," said the speaker, "it will be the bloodiest day of the war, and we must be whipped, routed. The Rebels are behind breastworks which cannot be carried. Any man but Grant would have known that this morning, but he is to fight it out on this line, and it is generally thought he will try it again in the morning. If he does, it will be a worse rout than Bull Run." No one was present but the surgeon in charge of the church, the dispensary clerk, and myself; so he was no alarmist, for when he had done speaking, he took his package, mounted his horse and left. People had said, through the day, that the roar of guns was heard in the higher portions of the city, but no news of the battle seemed to have reached it during all the next day. I spent it in preparing for the worst, warned Georgie and tightened the reins on my nurses. I had had no reason to complain of any, and felt that I should hold them to duty, even through a rout. It also seemed well to know where our wounded were located, in that part of the city, so that if an attempt were made to remove them, in a hurry, there might not be any overlooked. At half-past eleven that night I had heard nothing from the front, and went to sleep, with heavy forebodings. At two o'clock I was aroused by the sounds of a moving multitude, rose and looked out to see, under the starlight, a black stream pouring down the side street, on the corner of which our quarters were situated, and turning down Princess Ann, toward the river landing. To me, it was the nation going to her doom, passing through the little period of starlight, on into the darkness and the unknown. In Louisville, I had learned to believe that the Eternal verities demanded the destruction of our Government. True, the South had beaten the North in her bloody struggle for the privilege of holding her slaves while she flogged them; but I could see, in this, no reason why that North should be chosen as Freedom's standard-bearer! Our ignoble Emancipation Proclamation had furnished no rock of moral principle on which to plant her feet while she struggled in that bloody surf. God was blotting out our name from among the nations, that he might plant here a government worthy of such a country. I calculated there was a rear guard that would hold the enemy back until morning, and did not wake Georgie, who needed sleep; but I must be with my men, who would be alarmed by the unusual sounds; must see that those nurses did not run away.