The preceding days had been full of detached fighting, and the night had come heavy with omens and presages.

The least intelligent knew now that Bragg had stopped, but they did not know that Longstreet was to be with him.
Dick and his comrades sat by a smothered fire, and the vast tangle of mountains and passes, of valleys and streams looked sinister to them.
There had been skirmishing throughout the day, and as the darkness closed down they still heard occasional rifle shots on the slopes and ridges.
"Don't these mountains make you think of your native Vermont, George ?" asked Dick.
"In a way, yes," replied Warner, "but my hills are not bristling with steel as these are." "No, you New Englanders are fortunate.

The war will never be carried on on your soil.

You shed your blood, but, after all, the states that are trodden under foot by the armies suffer most." "There are lights winking on the mountains again," said Pennington.
"Let 'em wink," said Dick.

"Their signals can't amount to much now.