CHAPTER 20

AS THE HOT NOISY DAYS OF AUGUST were drawing to a close, the
bombardment abruptly ceased. The quiet that fell on the town was
startling. Neighbors met on the streets and stared at one another,
uncertain, uneasy, as to what might be impending. The stillness, after
the screaming days, brought no surcease to strained nerves but, if possible,
made the strain even worse. No one knew why the Yankee batteries were
silent; there was no news of the troops except that they had been withdrawn
in large numbers from the breastworks about the town and had marched off
toward the south to defend the railroad. No one knew where the fighting was,
if indeed there was any fighting, or how the battle was going if there was a
battle. Nowadays the only news was that which passed from mouth to mouth.
Short of paper, short of ink, short of men, the newspapers had suspended
publication after the siege began, and the wildest rumors appeared from
nowhere and swept through the town. Now, in the anxious quiet, crowds
stormed General Hood’s headquarters demanding information, crowds massed
about the telegraph office and the depot hoping for tidings, good tidings, for
everyone hoped that the silence of Sherman’s cannon meant that the Yankees
were in full retreat and the Confederates chasing them back up the road to
Dalton. But no news came. The telegraph wires were still, no trains came in
on the one remaining railroad from the south, and the mail service was broken.