Northern Virginia was passing by train over the mountains. It was led
by a thick-bearded, powerful man, no less a general than the renowned
Longstreet, sent to help Bragg. The veterans of the Army of Northern
Virginia would swell Bragg's ranks, and the great army, turning a
sanguine face northward, was eager for Rosecrans to come on. The
Southern force would number more than ninety thousand men, more numerous
than ever before or afterward in the West.

It was now late in September, the eve of the eighteenth, and Dick and his
comrades lay near the little creek with the rhythmical name, Chickamauga.
It was the very night that a portion of the Army of Northern Virginia had
arrived in Bragg's camp. The preceding days had been full of detached
fighting, and the night had come heavy with omens and presages. The
least intelligent knew now that Bragg had stopped, but they did not know
that Longstreet was to be with him.

Dick and his comrades sat by a smothered fire, and the vast tangle of
mountains and passes, of valleys and streams looked sinister to them.
There had been skirmishing throughout the day, and as the darkness closed
down they still heard occasional rifle shots on the slopes and ridges.

"Don't these mountains make you think of your native Vermont, George?"
asked Dick.

"In a way, yes," replied Warner, "but my hills are not bristling with
steel as these are."

"No, you New Englanders are fortunate. The war will never be carried on
on your soil. You shed your blood, but, after all, the states that are
trodden under foot by the armies suffer most."