“You have young and strong eyes. Tell me what you can see.”
Harry raised the splendid pair of glasses that he had captured in one of the engagements and took a long, careful look.
“I can see west of the turnpike,” he said, “at least four or five regiments and a battery of eight big guns. I think, too, that there is a force of cavalry behind them. On the right, sir, I see stone fences and the windings of the creeks with large masses of infantry posted behind them.”
He spoke modestly, but with confidence.
“Your eyesight agrees with mine,” said Jackson. “We outnumber them, but they have the advantage of the defense. But it shall not avail them.”
He spoke to himself rather than to the others, but Harry heard every word he said, and he already felt the glow of the victory that Jackson had promised. He now considered it impossible for Jackson to promise in vain.
The sun was rising on another brilliant morning, and the two armies that had been fighting all through the dark now stood face to face in full force in the light. Behind the Northern army was Winchester in all the throes of anxiety or sanguine hope.
The people had heard two or three days before that Jackson was fighting his way back toward the north, winning wherever he fought. They had heard in the night the thunder of his guns coming, always nearer, and the torrents of fugitives in the dark had told them that the Northern army was pushed hard. Now in the morning they were looking eagerly southward, hoping to see Jackson's gray legions driving the enemy before him. But it was yet scarcely full dawn, and for a while they heard nothing.
Jackson waited a little and scanned the field again. The morning had now come in the west as well as in the east, and he saw the strong Northern artillery posted on both sides of the turnpike, threatening the Southern advance.
“We must open with the cannon,” he said, and he dispatched Harry and Dalton to order up the guns.