two o'clock in the
morning
Many doubted this report , but some believed it ; and I have an impression that hundreds went to bed in Washington that night with a lingering doubt whether they would not be involved , before morning , or at all events before the noon of the next day , in such scenes of violence and bloodshed as the continent had never yet witnessed . `` I went over to the Capitol after tea , and took the place that had been kindly kept for me in the reporters ' gallery of the Senate . No matter what occurred there -- history has made it a part of our painful record , and that is quite sufficient . It was between one and two o'clock in the morning , Crittenden had just concluded his heart-breaking appeal to the North to be generous and not let the Union go by default , and Baker had just closed his noble appeal to the new dominant party -LRB- of which he was one -RRB- not to peril a nation by the adoption of the old Roman cry of ' _ Vae Victis _ , ' -- when I left the Senate gallery for an hour , intending to return when I had breathed for awhile outside of that suffocating atmosphere . I passed to the front through the entrance under the collonade , and was just about to step out into the open air , when a voice arrested me . Surely I had heard it before . '' ` Straws against a whirlwind ! '