They were marching to battle, wounds and death, but they were too young and too buoyant to think much about it.
Harry soon learned that they were going toward Bath and Hancock, two villages on the railway, both held by Northern troops.

He surmised that Jackson would strike a sudden blow, surprise the garrisons, cut the railway, and then rush suddenly upon some greater force.

A campaign in the middle of winter.

It appealed to him as something brilliant and daring.

The pulses which had beat hard so often lately began to beat hard again.
The army went swiftly across forest and fields.