Midnight
When the President and his Cabinet were gone , and the whistling of the train was heard for the last time , the soldiers disappeared up the river , but the streets and roads were still crowded with the refugees , and the fires , burning more fiercely than ever , spread now to private houses . Richmond was a vast core of light . Prescott will never forget that night , the sad story of a fallen city , the passing of the old South , the weepings , the farewells , the people going from their homes out upon the bare country roads in the darkness , the drunken mob that still danced and fought behind them , and the burning city making its own funeral pyre . Midnight passed , but there was still no sign of the Yankees . Prescott wished that they would come , for he had no fear of them : they would save the city from the destruction that was threatening it and restore order . Richmond was without rulers . The old had gone , but the new had not come .