Soon, he turned abruptly, strode away into the darkness, but came back after a while, lay down on the fence rails and slept soundly.
Harry put four or five rails side by side to protect his body from the cold ground, lay down upon them and threw a cloak over himself.

Now he relaxed or rather collapsed completely.

The tension that had kept him up so long was gone, and he felt that he could not have risen from the rails had he wished.

He saw wavering fires and dusky figures beside them, but sleep came in a few minutes to soothe and heal.
Bye and bye all the army, save the sentinels, slept and the victorious Northern army only two or three miles away also slept, feeling that it had done enough for one day.
Shields that night was sending messages to the North announcing his victory, but he was cherishing no illusions.

He told how fierce had been the attack, and with what difficulty it had been beaten off, and in Washington, reading well between the lines they felt that another attack and yet others might come from the same source.
Harry sleeping on his bed of fence rails did not dream of the extraordinary things that the little army of Jackson, beaten at Kernstown was yet to do.