Judith White McGuire, Diary of a southern refugee during the war, by a lady of Virginia

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[124] beings; and after nightfall the commanding hills from the President's house to the Alms-House were covered, like a vast amphitheatre, with men, women and children, witnessing the grand display of fireworks-beautiful, yet awful-and sending death amid those whom our hearts hold so dear. I am told (for I did not witness it) that it was a scene of unsurpassed magnificence. The brilliant light of bombs bursting in the air and passing to the ground, the innumerable lesser lights, emitted by thousands and thousands of muskets, together with the roar of artillery and the rattling of small-arms, constituted a scene terrifically grand and imposing. What spell has bound our people? Is their trust in God, and in the valour of our troops, so great that they are unmoved by these terrible demonstrations of our powerful foe? It would seem so, for when the battle was over the crowd dispersed and retired to their respective homes with the seeming tranquility of persons who had been witnessing a panorama of transactions in a far-off country, in which they felt no personal interest; though they knew that their countrymen slept on their arms, only awaiting the dawn to renew the deadly conflict, on the success of which depended not only the fate of our capital, but of that splendid army, containing the material on which our happiness depends. Ah! many full, sorrowful hearts were at home, breathing out prayers for our success; or else were busy in the hospitals, administering to the wounded. Those on the hill-sides and house-tops were too nervous and anxious to stay at home — not that they were apprehensive for the city, but for the fate of those who were defending it, and their feeling was too deep for expression. The same feeling, perhaps, which makes me write so much this morning. But I must go to other duties.

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