But rioters must eat and sleep like other people, and though knots of them could be seen in various parts of the city, the main portion seemed to have retired soon after midnight. In the police head-quarters, men were lying around on the floor in the warm July night, snatching, as best they could, a little repose. General Brown and staff, in their chairs or stretched on a settee, nodded in this lull of the storm, though ready at a moment's notice to do their duty. But there was no rest for Acton. He had not closed his eyes for nearly forty hours, and he was not to close them for more than forty to come. With his nerves strung to their utmost tension, and resolved to put down that mob though the streets ran blood, he gave his whole soul to the work before him. He infused his determined, fearless spirit into every one who approached him. Anonymous letters, telling him he had not another day to live, he flung aside with a scornful smile, to attend to the telegraph dispatches from the different precincts. Troops and men were stationed at various points, and gunboats were patrolling the rivers, and he must be on the alert every moment. The fate of a great city lay on his heart, and he could not sleep. [Illustration: THE DEAD SERGEANT IN 22d STREET] CHAPTER XVII. DRAFT RIOT--THIRD DAY. Scenes in the City and at Head-quarters.--Fight in Eighth Avenue.--Cannon sweep the Streets.--Narrow Escape of Captain Howell and Colonel Mott.--Battle for Jackson's Foundry.--Howitzers clear the Street.--State of Things shown by Telegraph Despatches.--General Sandford sends out a Force against a Mob, at Corner of Twenty-ninth Street and Seventh Avenue.--Colonel Gardin's Fight with the Mob.--Is Wounded.--Mob Victorious.--Dead and Wounded Soldiers left in the Street.--Captain Putnam sent to bring them away.--Disperses the Mob.--Terrific Night. Tuesday had been a day of constant success to the police and military, and many thought that the rioters were thoroughly disheartened, and but little more hard fighting would be done. There had been two days of exhausting work, and both parties were well tired out. The commissioners, certainly, could not stand this terrible strain much longer. Forty-eight hours without sleep or rest, and all the time under the intensest mental strain, was telling on even the wiry Acton, though he would confess to no fatigue. To one who could take in all that was passing in New York on this morning, the city would have presented a strange appearance.