ll they marched; midnight, and, extremely
weary, they halted in a region of hills running up to the stars.
Reveille sounded startlingly soon. The troops had breakfast while the
stars were fading, and found themselves in column on the pike under the
first pink streakings of the dawn. They looked around for the Army of
the Valley. A little to the northeast showed a few light curls of
smoke, such as might be made by picket fires. They fancied, too, that
they heard, from behind the screen of hills, faint bugle-calls, bugle
answering bugle, like the cocks at morn. If it were so, they were thin
and far away, "horns of elfland." Evidently the three brigades must
restrain their impatience for an hour or two.

In the upshot it proved that they were not yet to fraternize with the
Army of the Valley. When presently, they marched, it was _up_ the
Valley, back along the pike toward Staunton. The three brigadiers
conferred together. Whiting, the senior, a veteran soldier, staunch and
determined, was angry. "Reasonable men should not be treated so! 'You
will start at four, General Whiting, and march until midnight, when you
will bivouac. At early dawn a courier will bring you further
instructions.' Very good! We march and bivouac, and here's the courier.
'The brigades of Whiting, Hood, and Lawton will return to Staunton.
There they will receive further instructions.'" Whiting swore. "We are
getting a taste of his quality with a vengeance! Very well! very well!
It's all right--if he wins through I'll applaud, too--but, by God! he
oughtn't to treat reasonable men so!--_Column Forward!_"

Under the stately trees at Mt. Meridian, in the golden June weather, the
Army of the Valley settled to its satisfaction that it was about to
invade Maryland. Quite an unusual number of straws showed which way the
wind was blowing. Northern news arrived by grapevine, and Northern
papers told the army that was what it was going to do,--"invade Maryland
and move on Washington--sixty thousand bloody-minded rebels!"--"Look
here, boys, look here. Multiplication by division! The Yanks have split
each of us into four!" Richmond papers, received by way of Staunton,
divulged the fact that troops had been sent to the Valley, and opined
that the other side of Mason and Dixon needed all the men at home. The
engineers received an order to prepare a new and elaborate series of
maps of the Valley. They were not told to say nothing about it, so
presently the army knew