Part of the country was
familiar to him and in addition his directions were so explicit that he
could not miss the way.
The four divisions of the army were in fairly close touch, but in a
country of forests and many waters Northern scouts might come between,
and he rode with caution, his hand ever near the pistol in his belt.
The midday sun however clouded as the afternoon passed on. The thickets
and forests grew more dense. From the distance came now and then the
faint, sweet call of a trumpet, but everything was hidden from sight by
the dense tangle of the Wilderness, a wilderness as wild and dangerous as
any in which Henry Ware had ever fought. How it all came back to him!
Almost exactly a year ago he had ridden into it with Jackson and here the
armies were gathering again.
Imagination, fancy, always so strong in him, leaped into vivid life.
The year had not passed and he was riding to meet Stonewall Jackson,
who was somewhere ahead, preparing for his great curve about Hooker and
the lightning stroke at Chancellorsville. Rabbits sprang out of the
undergrowth and fled away before his horse's hoofs. In the lonely
wilderness, which nevertheless had little to offer to the hunter, birds
chattered from every tree.
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