The troops, formed up on the high grounds south of the river, looked in silence at the dense volumes of smoke rising.

This was the reality of war.

Hitherto their military work had been no more than that to which many of them were accustomed when called out with the militia of their State; but the scene of destruction on which they now gazed brought home to them that the struggle was a serious one--that it was war in its stern reality which had now begun.
The troops at once set off on their march, and at night bivouacked in the woods around Charleston.

The next day they pushed across the country and took up a position covering Winchester; and then the enemy, finding that Johnston's army was in front of them, ready to dispute their advance, recrossed the river, and Johnston concentrated his force round Winchester.
Vincent joined his corps on the same afternoon that the infantry marched out from Harper's Ferry, the general sending him forward with dispatches as soon as the troops had got into motion.
"You will find Colonel Stuart in front of the enemy; but more than that I cannot tell you." This was quite enough for Vincent, who found the cavalry scouting close to Patterson's force, prepared to attack the enemy's cavalry, should it advance to reconnoiter the country, and to blow up bridges across streams, fell trees, and take every possible measure to delay the advance of Patterson's army, in its attempt to push on toward Winchester before the arrival of General Johnston's force upon the scene.
"I am glad to see you back, Wingfield," Major Ashley said, as he rode up.

"The colonel tells me that in the dispatch he got last night from Johnston the general said that Stuart's information reached him in a remarkably short time, having been carried with great speed by the orderly in charge of the duty.