These farmer boys, as they heard the unceasing menace of the big guns, would double the numbers of their foe, and attribute to him an unrelaxing energy.
Thus another gray day of winter wore away, and the two forces drew a little nearer to each other.

Far away the rival Presidents at Washington and Richmond were wondering what was happening to their armies in the dark wilderness of Western Tennessee.
The night was more quiet than the one that had just gone before.

The booming of the cannon as regular as the tolling of funeral bells had ceased with the darkness, but in its place the fierce winter wind had begun to blow again.

Dick, relaxed and weary after his day's work, hovered over one of the fires and was grateful for the warmth.

He had trodden miles through slush and snow and frozen earth, and he was plastered to the waist with frozen mud, which now began to soften and fall off before the coals.
Warner, who had been on active duty, too, also sank to rest with a sigh of relief.
"It's battle tomorrow, Dick," he said, "and I don't care.