Lee and his
staff almost with involuntary impulse returned the salute in like
fashion. Then the Invincibles passed on, and were lost from view in the
depths of the forest.
Harry felt a sudden constriction of the heart. He knew that he might
never see Colonel Leonidas Talbot nor Lieutenant-Colonel Hector
St. Hilaire again, nor St. Clair, nor Happy Tom either.
But his friends could not remain long in his mind at such a time.
They were marching, marching swiftly, the presence of the man on the
great white horse seeming to urge them on to greater speed. As the stars
came out Lee's brow, which had been seamed by thought, cleared. His plan
which he had formed in the day was moving well. His three corps were
bearing away toward the old battlefield of Chancellorsville. Grant would
be drawn into the thickets of the Wilderness as Hooker had been the year
before, although a greater than Hooker was now leading the Army of the
Potomac.
Harry, who foresaw it all, thrilled and shuddered at the remembrance.
It was in there that the great Jackson had fallen in the hour of supreme
triumph. Not far away were the heights of Fredericksburg, where Burnside
had led the bravest of the brave to unavailing slaughter.
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