The woman in plain black, with the basket on her arm, had seemed a pathetic figure to him.
He could not blame them for feeling such intense bitterness.

What were the causes of the war to people who had been driven from a luxurious home to a hole in the side of a ravine?
He slept, and when he woke it seemed to be only a moment later, but he knew from the slender edge of light appearing where the blanket just failed to touch the floor that morning had come.

He moved gently lest he disturb his host in the larger room without, and then he heard the distant thunder, which he knew was the booming of Grant's great guns.
And so the night had not stopped them! All through the hours that he slept the cannon had rained steel and death on Vicksburg.

Then came a great explosion telling him that a shell had burst somewhere near.

It was followed by the voice of Colonel Woodville raised in high, indignant tones: "Can't they let a gentleman sleep?
Must they wake him with one of their infernal shells ?" He heard a slight rustling sound and he knew that it was the great bald head moving impatiently on the pillows.