twelve o'clock
But he never got any proof of its presence until he went down to the little old house of Salem , just before the Fourth of July . He took a friend down with him -- a young fellow who had been in the regular army since the day Fort Sumter was fired on , and who thought that after four years of the little unpleasantness down South , including six months in Libby , and after ten years of fighting the bad Indians on the plains , he was n't likely to be much frightened by a ghost . Well , Eliphalet and the officer sat out on the porch all the evening smoking and talking over points in military law . A little after twelve o'clock , just as they began to think it was about time to turn in , they heard the most ghastly noise in the house . It was n't a shriek , or a howl , or a yell , or anything they could put a name to . It was an undeterminate , inexplicable shiver and shudder of sound , which went wailing out of the window . The officer had been at Cold Harbor , but he felt himself getting colder this time .