Well, that would be bad for Pope! Harry had no doubt of it.
They passed out of the gap, leaving the mountain behind them, and swept on through two little villages, and over the famous plateau of Manassas Junction which many of them had seen before in the fire and smoke of the war's first terrible day.

Here were the fields and hills over which they had fought and won the victory.

Harry recognized at once the places which had been burned so vividly into his memory, and he considered it a good omen.
Not so far away was Washington, and so strongly was Harry's imagination impressed that he believed he could have seen through powerful glasses and from the crest of some tall hill that they passed, the dome of the Capitol shining in the August sun.

He wondered why there was no attack, nor even any alarm.

The cloud of dust that so many thousands of marching men made could be seen for miles.