nearly midnight on Friday
Boston , the former headquarters of the abolitionists , and the veterans of the Grand Army vied with Southern cities and ex-Confederates in a spontaneous outpouring of sympathy and help . The hearts of a proud people were at last subdued , but it was by hands stretched out in fraternal love and not to strike . In the city squares and other places of refuge there still continued sad and awful experiences , one of which was graphically described by the city editor of the journal already quoted . At nearly midnight on Friday there had been a cessation in the shocks for about twenty-four hours , and the people were resting quietly . Then came a convulsion second only in severity to the first one which had wrought such widespread ruin . `` It had scarcely died away , '' to quote from the account referred to , `` before there rose through the still night air in the direction of the public squares and parks the now familiar but still terrible cries of thousands of wailing voices , united in one vast chorus , expressive only of the utmost human misery . For a while this sound was heard above all other sounds , suggesting vividly to the mind what has been told by survivors of the scene that follows the sinking of a great ship at sea , when its living freight is left struggling with the waves ; and this impression was heightened to the distant auditor by the gradual diminution in the volume of the cries , as though voice after voice were being silenced , as life after life were quenched beneath the tossing waves . ''