She asked, “The double house? MacLeans live there—and the Wade girl, Mrs. McClellan. She’s got a new baby. Do you rebels mean to tell me that you make war on babies?”

“No, ma’am.” He had curly black hair, long untrimmed, and his face was very dirty. “But those friends of yours ought to tell the Yanks to get out of their yard. They keep shooting at us down here, and we have to shoot back. Now, ma’am, please go back home.”

Fearful, shuttered houses so silent and unpeopled on each side … a gun at the tannery said gam. Eva Duffey turned and took a few slow steps; the soldier came behind her.

“Now, lady, I mean—”

“You don’t talk like one of these rebels,” she told him.

“Maybe that’s because I was raised in Pittsburgh,” he said, and waved her on.

She felt eyes glaring at her, all the way. Men roosted among the guns in the Diamond; most of them were munching doughnuts. Somebody had been selling them doughnuts—a small boy in a gingham shirt, with an empty basket on his arm. She caught his shoulder and whirled him around. “Frankie,” she cried, “have you seen the doctor anywheres?”

His father had been killed at Fair Oaks; his mother had four children; yes, he had been selling doughnuts at five cents a piece. “He drove down Baltimore street a long time ago, before they started to fight in town. I ain’t see him since, Missis—”

“Then he was out at Culps or the Funk place,” she cried, and trying in all anguish to believe it. “He was out there, and the armies got between him and home. He couldn’t get back. There’s shoot-sharpers at the tannery and they— He can’t get back.” From every street came the mottled rumble of moving teams; sidewalks and roadways were littered with caps and knapsacks and muskets and much manure, but the rebels had men going about and collecting everything which could be used. There was a row of dead bodies stretched on the porch of the Emblem Hotel.

She went on home. There was nothing to do but wait until the next day. The Federals would be gone by morning, most likely, and the rebels would start after them. Then Doctor Duffey could return to the village. He would despise this war more than ever; there would be no tempering his views, and who knew but what Stanton’s spies would hustle him away to Washington and the Old Capitol prison, as a suspicious person or a traitor … Wring his neck, she sobbed, and hurried on. A man bawled out and tried to snatch her arm; she felt his beard brush her shoulder; he was drunk. “Arrest that man!” somebody snapped, and there was the sound of running feet, and a struggle. Now she had best remain at home.