Now he had more than seventy thousand, and Sherburne and Harry felt certain that instead of waiting to be attacked by McClellan he himself would go forth to attack.
Harry had seldom seen a day more beautiful.

That long hot, dry summer had been followed by a fine autumn, the most glorious of all seasons in North America, when the air has snap and life enough in it to make the old young again.
He was familiar now with the rolling country into which they rode after leaving the forest.

Off in one direction lay the fields on which they had fought the First and Second Manassas, and off in another, behind the loom of the blue mountains, he had ridden with Stonewall Jackson on that marvelous campaign which seemed to Harry without an equal.
But the land about them was deserted now.

There were no harvests in the fields.

No smoke rose from the deserted farm houses.