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Secret Service.
The flags of war like storm-birds fly, The charging trumpets blow, Yet rolls no thunder in the sky, No earthquake strives below.
And calm and patient Nature keeps Her ancient promise well, Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps The battle's breath of hell.
Ah! eyes may well be full of tears, And hearts with hate are hot, But even-paced come round the years, And Nature changes not.
She meets with smiles out bitter grief, With songs our groans of pain; She mocks with tint of flower and leaf The war-field's crimson stain.
-- Whittier's "Battle Autumn of 1862" The Summer and Fall of the "Battle Year" of 1862 had passed without the Army of the Cumberland--then called the Army of the Ohio--being able to bring its Rebel antagonist to a decisive struggle.

In September the two had raced entirely across the States of Tennessee and Kentucky, for the prize of Louisville, which the Union army won.

In October the latter chased its enemy back through Kentucky, without being able to inflict upon it more than the abortive blow at Perryville, and November found the two opponents facing each other in Middle Tennessee--the Army of the Cumberland at Nashville, and the Rebel Army of the Tennessee at Murfeesboro, twenty-eight miles distant.

There the two equally matched giants lay confronting each other, and sullenly making ready for the mighty struggle which was to decide the possession of a territory equalling a kingdom in extent.
In the year which had elapsed since the affair at Wildcat Harry Glen's regiment had not participated in a single general engagement.