midnight
Let joy be unconfined . '' Our guests arrived on time , and shortly after it became dark , the Dutch band we had hired from , a beer hall down town , struck up some sort of foreign music , and `` there was a sound of revelry by night . '' We danced half a dozen times , smiled sweetly on our guests , walked around the paths of the old garden , flirted a little perhaps , and talked big with the male guests , and convinced them anew that we were regular old battle-scarred vets , on detached duty of great importance . Near midnight we all set down to lunch , around the beer tables , and everything was going along smooth . The old gentleman who had been first to make our acquaintance , and who had been the means of getting us into society , proposed as a toast , `` Our brave and generous hosts , '' and the boys called upon me to respond . I got up on a bench and was making a speech that , if I had been allowed to continue , would have been handed down in history as one of the ablest of our time . It was conciliatory in tone , calculated to cement a friendship between the army and the citizens of the south , and show that while we were engaged in war , there was nothing mean about us , and that we loved our neighbors as ourselves .