He began to have the feeling, or rather instinct warned him, that battle was near.

Yet he did not fear for the Northern army as he had feared in Virginia and Maryland.
He never felt that such men as Lee and Jackson were before them.

He felt instead that the Southern commanders were doubtful and hesitating.

They now had there no such leaders as Albert Sidney Johnston, who fell at Shiloh when victory was in Southern hands and before it had time to slip from their grasp.
So the army dropped slowly down eastward and southward through the Bluegrass.

May and Powell had obtained but a brief glimpse of their home town, before they were on their way again with a purpose which had little to do with such peaceful things as home.
Dick saw with dismay that the concentric march of the armies was bringing them toward the very region into which his mother had fled for refuge.