Pleasanton had not only struck a hard blow, but he had learned where Lee's army lay, and, moreover, he had shown the horsemen of the South that those of the North were on the watch.
It was late in the afternoon when the last Northern rider crossed the Rappahannock, and Harry looked upon a field strewn with the fallen, both men and horses.

Then he turned to Sherburne and bound up his wounded shoulder for him.

The hurt was not serious, but Sherburne, although they had driven off the Northern horse, was far from sanguine.
"It's a Pyrrhic victory," he said.

"We had the superior numbers, and it was all we could do to beat them back.

Besides, they surprised us, when we thought we had a patent on that sort of business." "It's so," said Harry, his somber glance passing again over the field.
Their feeling was communicated, too, to the advancing masses of infantry.