The soldiers grinned at her. They were already riding away.
"With the Turks," answered one over his shoulder.
Another was kinder, or more cruel.
"Sister!" he explained, "it is likely that two hundred thousand men will be engaged on this spot. The whole Army of Northern Virginia is advancing from the north, the whole Army of the Potomac is advancing from the south, you—"
The soldier did not finish. His galloping comrades had left him, he hastened to join them. After him floated another accusation of lying from the lips of Hannah Casey. Hannah was irritated because the Bateses were right.
"Hannah!" said Mary Bowman thickly. "I told you how I dreamed I heard them marching. It was as though they came in every road, Hannah, from Baltimore and Taneytown and Harrisburg and York. The roads were full of them, they were shoulder against shoulder, and their faces were like death!"
Hannah Casey grew ghastly white. Superstition did what common sense and word of man could not do.
"So you did!" she whispered; "so you did!"
Mary Bowman clasped her hands and looked about her, down the street, out toward the Seminary, back at the grim trees. The little sounds had died away; there was now a mighty stillness.
"He said the whole Army of the Potomac," she repeated. "John is in the Army of the Potomac."