Walt Whitman, unofficial observer to the cosmos, reads of the defeat in a Brooklyn room. The scene rises before him, more real than the paper he stares upon. He sees the defeated army pouring along Pennsylvania Avenue in the drizzling rain, a few regiments in good order, marching in silence, with lowering faces⁠—the rest a drenched, hungry mob that plods along on blistered feet and falls asleep on the stoops of houses, in vacant lots, in basement-areas huddled, too tired to remember battle or be ashamed of flight.

Nothing said⁠—no cries or cheers from the windows, no jeers from the secessionists in the watching crowd⁠—half the crowd is secessionist at heart, even now, more than ever now.

Two old women, white-haired, stand all day in the rain, giving coffee and soup and bread to the passing men. The tears stream down their faces as they cut the bread and pour out the coffee.