How long would the war last? In May they had thought
"Three months." In the flush of triumph after Manassas they had said "It
is over." But it wasn't over. Marching and camping had followed, fights
on the Peninsula, fights on the Kanawha, at Leesburg, at Cheat Mountain,
affairs in the far South; and now McClellan drilling, organizing,
organizing below Washington! with rumours of another "On to Richmond."
When would the war be over? Allan wondered.

The column, turning to the right, began to descend the mountain, a long,
slipping, stumbling downward going, with the snow falling heavily and
the wind screaming like a banshee. At the foot was a stretch of bottom
land, then, steep and rocky, grimly waiting to be crossed, rose Bear
Garden Ridge. High Top loomed behind. The infantry could see the
cavalry, creeping up Bear Garden, moving slowly, slowly, bent before the
blast, wraith-like through the falling snow. From far in the rear, back
of the Stonewall Brigade, back of Loring, came a dull sound--the
artillery and the wagon train climbing Sleepy Creek Mountain. It was
three o'clock in the afternoon--oh, leaden weariness, hunger, cold,
sickness, worn-out shoes--

Back upon the mountain top, in the ambulance taken at Manassas, Mr. Corbin
Wood, better than he had been for several days, but still feverish, propped
himself upon the straw and smiled across at Will Cleave, who, half carried
by his brother, had appeared beside the ambulance an hour before. Swaying
as he stood, the boy protested to the last that he could march just as well
as the other fellows, that they would think him a baby, that Richard would
ruin his reputation, that he wasn't giddy, that the doctor in Winchester
had told him that after you got well from typhoid fever you were stronger
than you ever had been before, that Mr. Rat would think he was malingering,
that--that--that--Richard lifted him into the ambulance and laid him upon
the straw which several of the sick pushed forward and patted into place.
The surgeon gave a restorative. The elder brother waited until the boy's
eyes opened, stooped and kissed him on the forehead, and went away. Now
Will said that he was rested, and that it was all a fuss about nothing
anyway, and it was funny, travelling like animals in a circus, and wasn't
it most feeding time anyway? Corbin Wood had a bit of bread which he
shared, and two or three convalescents in a corner took up the circus idea.
"There ain't going to be anoth