In the hollows of the ridges, which the wintry sun seldom reached, great masses of ice were packed, and the plain below, cut up the day before by wheels and hoofs and footsteps, was now like a frozen field of ploughed land.
The staff heard enough through the fogs and mists to know that the Army of the Potomac was awake and stirring.

The Southern army also arose, lighted its fires, cooked and ate its food and waited for the enemy.
Before it was yet light Harry, on a message to Stuart, rode to the top of Prospect Hill with him, and, as they sat there on their horses, the sun cleared away the fog and mist, and they saw the Army of the Potomac drawn up in line of battle, defiant and challenging, ready to attack or to be attacked.
Harry felt a thrill of admiration that he did not wish to check.
After all, the Yankees were their own people, bone of their bone, and their courage must be admired.

The Army of the Potomac, too, was learning to fight without able chiefs.

The young colonels and majors and captains could lead them, and there they were, after their most terrible defeat, grim and ready.
"The lion's wounded, but he isn't dead, by any means," said Harry to Stuart.
"Not by a great deal," said Stuart.
There was much hot firing by skirmishers that day and artillery duels at long range, but the Northern army, which had fortified on the plain, would not come out of its intrenchments, and the Southern soldiers also stuck to theirs.

Burnside, who had crossed the river to join his men, had been persuaded at last that a second attack was bound to end like the first.
The next day Burnside sent in a flag of truce, and they buried the dead.
The following night Harry, wrapped to the eyes in his great cloak, stood upon Prospect Hill and watched one of the fiercest storms that he had ever seen rage up and down the valley of the Rappahannock.