The three boys felt some awe as they sat there and listened and looked.

Well they might! Battle on a far greater scale than anything witnessed before in America had begun already.

Two hundred thousand men were about to meet in desperate conflict in the thickets and swamps along the Chickahominy.
Richmond had already heard the crash of McClellan's guns more than once, but apprehension was passing away.

Lee, whom they had learned so quickly to trust, stood with ninety thousand men between them and McClellan, and with him was the redoubtable Jackson and his veterans of the valley with their caps full of victories.
McClellan had the larger force, but Lee was on the defensive in his own country, a region which offered great difficulties to the invader.
Harry and his comrades wondered why Jackson did not move, but he remained in his place, and when Harry fell asleep he still heard the thudding of the guns across the vast reach of rivers and creeks, swamps and thickets.

When he awoke in the morning they were already at work again, flaring at intervals down there on the eastern horizon.