he had passed a pleasant hour.

Here Harry saw people that he knew. They could not do enough for him.
They wanted to overwhelm him with food, with clothes, with anything he
wanted. They wanted him to tell over and over again of that wonderful
march of theirs, how they had issued suddenly from the mountains in the
wake of the flying Milroy, how they had marched down the valley winning
battle after battle, marching and fighting without ceasing, both by day
and by night.

He was compelled to decline all offers of hospitality save food, which
he held in his hands and ate as he went about his work. When he finished
he went back to his general, and being told that he was wanted no more
for the night, wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down under an apple
tree.

He felt then that mother-earth was truly receiving him into her kindly
lap. He had not closed his eyes for nearly two days--it seemed a
month--and looking back at all through which he had passed it seemed
incredible. Human beings could not endure so much. They marched through
fire, where Stonewall Jackson led, and they never ceased to march. He
saw just beyond the apple tree a dusky figure walking up and down. It
was Jackson. Would he never rest? Was he not something rather more than
normal after all? Harry was very young and he rode with his hero, seeing
him do his mighty deeds.

But nature had given all that it had to yield, and soon he slept, lying
motionless and white like St. Clair and Langdon. But all through the
night the news of Jackson's great blow was traveling over the wires. He
had struck other fierce blows, but this was the most terrible of them
all. Alarm spread through the whole North. Lincoln and his Cabinet saw a
great army of rebels marching on Washington. A New York newspaper which
had appeared in the morning with the headline, "Fall of Richmond,"
appeared at night with the headline "Defeat of General Banks."
McDowell's army, which, marching by land, was to co-operate with
McClellan in the taking of Richmond, was recalled to meet Jackson. The
governors of the loyal states issued urgent appeals for more troops.

Harry learned afterward how terribly effective had been the blow. The
whole Northern campaign had been upset by the meteoric appearance of
Jackson and the speed with which he marched and fought. McDowell's army
of 40,000 men and a hundred guns had been scattered, and it would take
him much time to get it all together again. McClellan, a