els and hoofs
and footsteps, was now like a frozen field of ploughed land.

The staff heard enough through the fogs and mists to know that the Army
of the Potomac was awake and stirring. The Southern army also arose,
lighted its fires, cooked and ate its food and waited for the enemy.
Before it was yet light Harry, on a message to Stuart, rode to the top
of Prospect Hill with him, and, as they sat there on their horses,
the sun cleared away the fog and mist, and they saw the Army of the
Potomac drawn up in line of battle, defiant and challenging, ready to
attack or to be attacked.

Harry felt a thrill of admiration that he did not wish to check.
After all, the Yankees were their own people, bone of their bone,
and their courage must be admired. The Army of the Potomac, too,
was learning to fight without able chiefs. The young colonels and
majors and captains could lead them, and there they were, after their
most terrible defeat, grim and ready.

"The lion's wounded, but he isn't dead, by any means," said Harry to
Stuart.

"Not by a great deal," said Stuart.

There was much hot firing by skirmishers that day and artillery duels
at long range, but the Northern army, which had fortified on the plain,
would not come out of its intrenchments, and the Southern soldiers also
stuck to theirs. Burnside, who had crossed the river to join his men,
had been persuaded at last that a second attack was bound to end like
the first.

The next day Burnside sent in a flag of truce, and they buried the dead.
The following night Harry, wrapped to the eyes in his great cloak,
stood upon Prospect Hill and watched one of the fiercest storms that he
had ever seen rage up and down the valley of the Rappahannock. Many of
the Southern pickets were driven to shelter. While the whole Southern
army sought protection from the deluge, the Army of the Potomac, still a
hundred thousand strong, and carrying all its guns, marched in perfect
order over the six bridges it had built, breaking the bridges down
behind it, and camping in safety on the other side. The river was
rising fast under the tremendous rain, and the Southern army could find
no fords, even though it marched far up the stream.

Fredericksburg was won, but the two armies, resolute and defiant,
gathered themselves anew for other battles as great or greater.

CHAPTER VI

A CHRISTMAS DINNER

After the great battle at Fredericksburg both armies seemed to suffer
somew