) Ashby and Chew's Battery and a section of the
Rockbridge and the skirmishers and Wheat's Tigers are ahead. ('Well, if
they're so brash, let them wipe out Banks and welcome! And if one damned
officer that's ahead gits killed, I won't mourn him.') Ewell with
Trimble's Brigade and the First Maryland, Courtenay and Brockenborough
are off, making as the bird flies for Winchester! ('We ain't birds.
We're men, and awful tired men, too.') Steuart with the 2d and 6th
cavalry are already at Newtown. ('What in hell do I care if they air?')
Campbell and Taliaferro and Elzey and Scott and the Stonewall and the
balance of the guns form the main column, and at Middletown we're going
to turn and meet Banks. ('Gawd! more fighting, on an empty stomach, and
dog-tired!') General Jackson says, '_Men, we're going to rid the Valley
of Virginia of the enemy. Press on._' You know what an avalanche is.
('Knowed it before you was born. It's a place where you hide till the
man you hate worse than pison oak comes by!') Let the Stonewall now
turn avalanche; fall on Banks at Middletown and grind him small!--_Fours
right! Forward! March!_ ('Oh, Gawd! my cut foot! It's my lasting hope
that--sh!--Fool Tom Jackson'll break you same as he broke Garnett')."

The morning, at first divinely cool and sweet, turned hot and languid,
humid and without air. It made the perspiration stream, and then the
dust rose from the road, and the two together caused the most
discomfortable grime! It marked all faces, and it lodged between neck
and neckband and wrist and wristband where it chafed the skin. It got
deep into the shoes--through holes enough, God knows!--and there the
matter became serious, for many a foot was galled and raw. It got into
eyes and they grew red and smarting. It stopped ear and nostril. It
lined the mouth; it sifted down the neck and made the body miserable. At
the starting, as the men quit the green banks of Shenandoah, several of
the aesthetic sort had been heard to comment upon the beauty of the
scenery. Possibly the soul for beauty lasted, but as for the scenery, it
vanished. The brigade was now upon the Front Royal and Winchester pike,
moving in the foot and wheel prints of the advance, and under and
through an extended cirrhus cloud of dirty saffron. The scenery could
not be viewed through it--mere red blotches and blurs. It was so heavy
that it served for darkness. Men saw each other dimly at the distance of
ten feet, and mounted officers a