North and
South. The two armies had passed out of sight under the horizon's rim,
and the greatest battle of the war was to be fought unknown, until its
close, to the rival sections.

Harry and Dalton, keeping close together, because they were comrades and
because they felt the need of companionship, watched from their own hill
the town and the hill beyond. Harry felt no joy. The victory was not
yet to him a victory. He knew that the field below, terrible to the
sight, was destined to become far more terrible, and the coming twilight
was full of omens and presages.

The sun sank at last upon the scene of human strife and suffering,
but night brought with it little rest, because all through the darkness
the brigades and regiments were marching toward the fatal field.

CHAPTER XIII

GETTYSBURG

Harry took many messages that night, and he witnessed the gathering of
the generals about Lee. He saw Ewell come, hobbling on his crutches,
eager for battle and disappointed that they had not pushed the victory.
Hill returned again, refusing to yield to his illness. And there was
Longstreet, thick-bearded, the best fighter that Lee had since the death
of Jackson; McLaws, Hood, Heth, Pender, Jubal Early, Anderson and others,
veterans of many battles, great and small.

They talked long and earnestly and pointed many times to the battlefield
and the opposing heights. While they talked, a man appeared among the
men in blue on Cemetery Hill, accompanied only by a staff officer and an
orderly. He had ridden a long distance, and naturally lean and haggard,
these traits in his appearance were exaggerated by weariness and
anxiety. He looked as little like a great general as Jackson had looked
in those days before he had sprung into fame.

His military hat was black and broad of brim, and the brim, having
become limp, drooped down over his face. There were spectacles on his
nose, and it is said of him that he could have been taken more easily
for a teacher than for a commander-in-chief. Thus Meade came to his
army in the decisive moment of his country's life. He inspired neither
enthusiasm nor discouragement. He looked upon those left from the
battle and upon the brigades which had come since, thousands of men
already sound asleep among the white stones of the churchyard. Then
he turned in a calm and businesslike manner to the task of arranging a
stern front for the storm which he knew would burst upon them to-m