So great a movement as this could not escape their attention.

It would be impossible for a large army to pass on that journey of many miles around Hooker and not one of the hundred thousand men he had in the Wilderness bring him a word of it.
They might be discovered by one of the balloons, and Harry strained his eyes toward the far Rappahannock.

He saw a black speck floating in the sky, which he thought to be one of the balloons, and he felt a little dread, but in a moment he realized that Jackson's army was as completely hidden by the Wilderness from any such possible observer as if a blanket lay over it.

Then he dismissed all thoughts of balloons and rode on in silence beside Dalton.
Now he listened to the roar behind them.

It had the violence of a great battle, but he noticed that the sounds neither advanced nor retreated.
He smiled a little.