Harry also looked down the valley and his strong sight enabled him to detect tiny, moving figures which he knew were those of Union scouts and skirmishers.
Despite his youth and the ardor of battle in his nostrils, Harry felt the tragedy of war in this pleasant country.

It was a noble landscape, that of the valley between the blue mountains.

Before him stretched low hills, covered here and there with fine groups of oak or pine without undergrowth.

Houses of red brick, with porticoes and green shutters, stood in wide grounds.

Most of them were inhabited yet, and their owners always brought information to the soldiers of the South, never to those of the North.
The earth had not yet dried fully from the great rains, and horses and cannon wheels sank deep in the mud, whenever they left the turnpike running down the center of the valley and across which a Northern army under Shields lay.