three o'clock
No sentry was posted at the gate through the wall that separated the garrison proper from the hospital grounds . Asked why he had not reported this , the sergeant smiled and said there were a dozen others just as convenient , so what was the use ? He did not say , however , that he and his fellows had recourse to them night after night . It was three o'clock when the officers ' families fairly got settled down again and back to their beds , and the silence of night once more reigned over Jackson Barracks . One would suppose that such a scene of terror and excitement was enough , and that now the trembling , frightened women might be allowed to sleep in peace ; but it was not to be . Hardly had one of their number closed her eyes , hardly had all the flickering lights , save those at the hospital and guard-house , been downed again , when the strained nerves of the occupants of the officers ' quadrangle were jumped into mad jangling once more and all the barracks aroused a second time , and this , too , by a woman 's shriek of horror . Mrs. Conroy , a delicate , fragile little body , wife of a junior lieutenant of infantry occupying a set of quarters in the same building with , but at the opposite end from , Pierce and Waring , was found lying senseless at the head of the gallery stairs .