alk,
glancing now and then toward the distant lights that showed where the
army of Hooker stood.

CHAPTER IX

CHANCELLORSVILLE

Harry and Dalton sat down on a tiny hillock and waited while the two
generals carried on their long conference, to which now and then
they summoned McLaws, Anderson, Pender and other division or brigade
commanders. The two lads even then felt the full import of that
memorable night.

Nature herself had stripped away all softness, leaving only sternness
and desolation for the terrible drama which was about to be played in
the Wilderness. The night was dark, and to Harry's imaginative mind the
forest turned to some vast stretch of the ancient, primitive world.

Naturally cheerful and usually alive with the optimism of youth, the air
seemed to him that night to be filled with menacing signals. Often he
started at familiar sounds. The clank of arms to which he had been so
long used sent a chill down his spine. As the campfires died, the gloom
that hung over the Wilderness became for him heavier and more ominous.

"What's the matter, Harry?" asked Dalton, catching a glimpse of his face
in the moonlight.

"I don't know, George. I suppose this war is getting on my nerves.
I must be looking too much into the future. Anyway, I'm oppressed
to-night, and I don't know what it is that's oppressing me so much."

"I don't feel that way. Maybe I'm becoming blunted. But the generals
are talking a long time."

"I suppose they have need to do a lot of talking, George. You know
how small our army is, and we can't rush Hooker behind the strong
intrenchments they say he has thrown up. Oh, if only Longstreet and
his corps were back with us!"

"Well, Longstreet and his men are not here, and we'll have to do the
best we can without them. Hold up your head, Harry. Lee and Jackson
will find a way."

While Lee and Jackson and their generals conferred, another conference
was going on three miles away at the Chancellor House in the depths of
the Wilderness. Hooker, a brave man, who had proved his courage more
than once, was bewildered and uneasy. He lacked the experience in
supreme command in which his great antagonist, Lee, was so rich.
The field telegraph had broken down just before sunset, and his
subordinates, Sedgwick and Reynolds, brave men too, who had divisions
elsewhere, were vague and uncertain in their movements. Hooker did
not know what to expect from them.

Some of the g