CHAPTER IX.
THE next day the continuous roar of cannon all along the Imes of the enemy was kept up incessantly. "Nor did it cease at night, for when darkness settled over the encampment, from the ramparts that stretched away from Yorktown there were constant gushes of flame, while the heavy thunder rolled far away in the gloom." A little after midnight the cannonading ceased, and a strange silence rested upon hill and valley. The first dawn of day which broke peacefully over the landscape discovered to the practiced eye of Professor Lowe that the entrenchments*of the enemy were deserted; the rebels had abandoned their stronghold during the night and had fled toward Hichmond.
The news spread throughout the Federal army like lightning ; from right to left and from center