id the colonel.

"That's General Jackson."

The colonel approached and saluted. General Jackson's clothes were
soiled and dusty. His feet, encased in cavalry boots that reached beyond
the knees, rested upon a lower rail of the fence. A worn cap with a
dented visor almost covered his eyes. The rest of his face was concealed
by a heavy, dark beard.

"General Jackson, I believe," said the officer, saluting.

"Yes. How far have those men marched?" The voice was kindly and
approving.

"We've come twenty-six miles, sir."

"Good. And I see no stragglers."

"We allow no stragglers."

"Better still. I haven't been able to keep my own men from straggling,
and you'll have to teach them."

At that moment the Acadian band began to play, and it played the
merriest waltz it knew. Jackson gazed at it, took a lemon from his
pocket and began to suck the juice from it meditatively. The officer
stood before him in some embarrassment.

"Aren't they rather thoughtless for such serious work as war?" asked the
Presbyterian general.

"I am confident, sir, that their natural gayety will not impair their
value as soldiers."

Jackson put the end of the lemon back in his mouth and drew some juice
from it. The colonel bowed and retired. Then Jackson beckoned to Harry,
who stood by.

"Follow him and tell him," he said, "that the band can play as much as
it likes. I noticed, too, that it plays well."

Jackson smiled and Harry hurried after the officer, who flushed with
gratification, when the message was delivered to him.

"I'll tell it to the men," he said, "and they'll fight all the better
for it."

That night it was a formidable army that slept in the fields on either
side of the turnpike, and in the silence and the dark, Stonewall Jackson
was preparing to launch the thunderbolt.

CHAPTER IX. TURNING ON THE FOE

Harry was awakened at the first shoot of dawn by the sound of trumpets.
It was now approaching the last of May and the cold nights had long
since passed. A warm sun was fast showing its edge in the east, and,
bathing his face at a brook and snatching a little breakfast, he was
ready. Stonewall Jackson was already up, and his colored servant was
holding Little Sorrel for him.

The army was fast forming into line, the new men of Ewell resolved to
become as famous foot cavalry as those who had been with Jackson all
along. Ewell himself, full of enthusiasm and already devoted to his
chief, was riding among the