The Great War in England in 1897 by William le Queux

Noon came and went. The fighting grew fiercer around Manchester, and the excitement more intense within the barricaded, starving city. Through the wildly agitated crowds of women of all classes, from manufacturers' wives to factory girls, who moved up and down Deansgate, Market Street, and many other principal thoroughfares, feverishly anxious for the safety of their husbands and brothers manning the improvised defences, rumours of terrible disaster spread like wildfire, and caused loud wailing and lamentation.

Now rumour told of huge British successes away beyond the Mersey, a report which elated the pale-faced hungry ones, but this being followed quickly by a further report that a force of the defenders had been cut up and utterly annihilated outside Eccles, the cheering died away, and give place to deep, long-drawn sighs and murmurings of despair.