Sixteen hundred Mississippians were stationed in Fredericksburg below, well concealed in cellars and rifle pits, but they could not see either, and for the present their rifles were silent.
But Harry's imagination immediately became intensely vivid again.
He fancied that he could hear through all the shifting gloom the sound of axes and hammers and saws at work upon that bridge.

These army engineers could throw a bridge across a river in half a day.

He recognized at all times the great resources and the mechanical genius of the North.

The South had good bridge builders herself, but she had bent all her powers to the development of public men and soldiers.

Harry felt more intensely all the time the one-sided character of her growth and its defects.
Dalton stood by Harry's side, and the darkness was so intense that he seemed but a shadow.