What a tremendous and thrilling sight! It may be wicked
in me, Harry, but since there is a war and battles are being fought,
I'm glad I'm here to see it."

"So am I," said Harry. "It's something to feel that you're at the heart
of the biggest things going on in the world. Now we've lost 'em!"

His sudden exclamation was due to a shift of the wind, bringing back the
fog again and covering the river, the town and the advancing Union army.
The Confederate cannon then ceased firing, but Harry heard distinctly
the sounds made by scores of thousands of men marching, that measured
tread of countless feet, the beat of hoofs, the rumbling of cannon
wheels over roads now frozen hard, and the music of many bands still
playing. The thrill was all the keener when the great army became
invisible in the fog, although the mighty hum and murmur of varied
sounds proved that it was still marching there.

Jackson was on the right of Lee's line. He would be, as usual, in the
thick of it. His fighting line ran through deep woods, and he was
protected, moreover, by the slope up which the Union troops would
have to come, if they got near enough. Fourteen guns, guarded by two
regiments, were on Prospect Hill at his extreme right, and on his left
the ravine called Deep Run divided him from the command of Longstreet,
which spread away toward Marye's Hill.

Jackson's own line was a mile and a half long and he had thirty thousand
men, while Longstreet and the others had fifty thousand more. Lee
himself, directing the whole, rode along the lines on his white horse,
and whenever the men saw him cheers rolled up and down. But Lee had
little to say. All that needed to be said had been said already.

Harry saw the great commander riding along that morning as calmly as if
he were going to church. Lee, grave, imperturbable, was the last man
to show emotion, but Harry thought once that he caught a gleam from the
blue eye as he spoke a word or two with Jackson and went on. As he
passed near them, Harry, Dalton and all the other young officers took
off their hats, saluted and stood in silence. General Lee raised his
own hat in return, and rode back toward the division of Longstreet.

Harry glanced toward General Jackson, who was also mounted. But he did
not move and the reins lay loose on the animal's neck. Once the horse
dropped his head and nuzzled under some leaves for a few blades of
sheltered grass that had escaped the winter. But t