He and Dalton from a high crest looked back toward the vast panorama of hills, valleys, rivers and forest that had held for them so many thrilling and terrible memories.
There lay the blackened ruins of Fredericksburg.

There were the heights against which the brave Northern brigades had beat in vain and with such awful losses.

And beyond, far down under the horizon, was the tragic Wilderness in which they had won Chancellorsville and in which Jackson had fallen.

Harry choked and turned away from the fresh wound that the recollection gave him.
Lee and his staff rode hard all that afternoon and most of the night through territory guarded well against Northern skirmishers or raiding bands, and the next day they were with the army at Culpeper Court House.
Meanwhile Hooker was undecided whether to follow Lee or move on Richmond.

But the shrewd Lincoln telegraphed him that Lee was his "true objective." At that moment the man in the White House at Washington was the most valuable general the North had, knowing that Lee in the field with his great fighting force must be beaten back, and that otherwise Richmond would be worth nothing.
It was Harry's fortune in the most impressionable period of life to be in close contact for a long time with two very great men, both of whom had a vast influence upon him, creating for him new standards of energy and conduct.