A few words had been permitted by the telegraph-censors to come through, and they had arrived too late for the morning papers. They were consequently bulletined. They gave some hint of the abandonment of the White House and the severe fighting which followed that movement, on Saturday and Sunday. They were not hopeful—they were discouraging—much worse, as it afterwards appeared, than the truth demanded; and the knit brows and set teeth of the readers did not show any symptoms of improvement under the new revelation.
A considerable group of men were standing about the "World" bulletin, stopping, reading and passing on—all the more slowly because the shade of the high building was refreshing in that hot, blinding, cloudless July morning sun. A group of politicians who had read the bulletins and taken their second breakfast at Crook and Duff's, were digesting the one and picking their teeth from the fragments of the other, before the door of that unaccountably-popular establishment, on the block above. Over the street from the "World" corner, at the Park fence, a dozen or two of invalid soldiers, with jaundiced faces and shabby uniforms, who had arrived by steamer from the South the day before and taken up their temporary abode in the dirty Barracks,—were standing lounging and listening to what was read from the bulletin; while a sentinel paraded up and down the walk, outside, to prevent escapes that did not seem over-probable. Voices were a little high, though not in disagreement, among the group at the corner—for they were discussing the very subject noted—that of absenteeism and military sham.
At that moment a good-looking young officer in spotless full uniform, with his cap so natty that the rain could never have been allowed to fall upon it, with his hair curled and his moustache trim as if he had been intended for any other description of "ball" than one met on the field of battle, and with a Captain's double-bars on his shoulder,—came across the Park from the direction of Broadway, over to the Beekman Street corner, as if to pass down that street. Some of the talkers noticed him, and connected him and his class a little injuriously with the events of the day. Just as he passed the corner, brushing very near some of the talkers and casting a hurried glance at the bulletin-board—one of the crowd, a rough fellow who might have belonged to the set who growled and hooted Coriolanus out of Rome,—broke out with:—
"There goes one of them, now!"
"Yes," muttered another, almost in front of the officer. "D—n 'em all! Much good those shiny uniforms are doing the country!"
The officer, who must have heard the words and known that they were intended for his ears, paid no attention and was passing on—the part of prudence and propriety, beyond a doubt. But one of the crowd was not satisfied. He must make wrong of the right (a thing very common in all causes) and the insult a personal one.
"See here!" and he laid his hand on the officer's arm, detaining him, but not roughly. "Do you see what there is on that bulletin?"
"I see!" said the Captain.
"Yes, they are cutting our boys all to pieces down there!" went on the aggrieved citizen.
"Well?" again said the officer, apparently neither angry nor frightened.