one
o'clock
The majority of the officers gathered under the flaring lamp-lights at the sutler 's store and occupied themselves pretty much as did their inferiors in grade , though poker and punch -- specialties of Mr. Finkbein , the sutler -- lent additional color to the stories in circulation . From this congress the better element of the commissioned force was absent , the names , nationalities , and idiomatic peculiarities of speech of the individual members being identical in most instances with those of their comrades in arms in the ranks . `` Brax '' had summoned Minor , Lawrence , Kinsey , and Dryden to hear what the post surgeon had to say on his return , but cautioned them to keep quiet . As a result of this precaution , the mystery of the situation became redoubled by one o'clock , and was intensified by two , when it was announced that Private Dawson had attempted to break away out of the hospital after a visit from the same doctor in his professional capacity . People were tempted out on their galleries in the driving storm , and colored servants flitted from kitchen to kitchen to gather or dispense new rumors , but nobody knew what to make of it when , soon after two , an orderly rode in from town dripping with mud and wet , delivered a note to the colonel , and took one from him to Mr. Ferry , now sole representative of the officers of Battery `` X '' present for duty . Ferry in return sent the bedraggled horseman on to the battery quarters with an order to the first sergeant , and in about fifteen minutes a sergeant and two men , mounted and each leading a spare horse , appeared under Ferry 's gallery , and that officer proceeded to occupy one of the vacant saddles , and , followed by his party , went clattering out of the sally-port and splashing over to the levee . Stable-call sounded as usual at four o'clock , and , for the first time in the record of that disciplined organization since the devastating hand of Yellow Jack was laid upon it the previous year , no officer appeared to supervise the grooming and feeding .