Here the mechanical genius of the North showed supreme.
Such was the little army of Jackson, somber to see, which marched forth upon a campaign unrivalled in the history of war.

The men whom they were to meet were of staunch stock and spirit themselves.

Banks, their commander, had worked in his youth as a common laborer in a cotton mill, and had forced himself up by vigor and energy, but Shields was a veteran of the Mexican War.

Most of the troops had come from the west, and they, too, were used to every kind of privation and hardship.
Harry's duties carried him back and forth with the marching columns, but he lingered longest beside the Invincibles, only a regiment now, and that regiment composed almost wholly of Virginians.

St.Clair was still in the smartest of uniforms, a contrast to the others, and as he nodded to Harry he told him that the troops expected to meet the enemy before night.
"I don't know how they got that belief," he said, "but I know it extends to all our men.