A faint bluish tint was appearing under the gray horizon in the east.
Dick felt the touch of a light wind on his forehead. The dawn was coming.
Yes, the dawn was coming, but it was coming heavy with sinister omens and
the frown of battle. Before the bluish tint in the east had turned to
silver Dick heard the faint and far thudding of great guns, and closer a
heavy regular beat which he knew was the gallop of cavalry. Surely the
North could not fail now. Fierce anger against those who would break up
the Union surged up in him again.
The gray came at last, driving the bluish tint away, and the sun rose hot
and bright over the field of Manassas which already had been stained with
the blood of one fierce battle. But now the armies were far greater.
Nearly a hundred and fifty thousand men were gathering for the combat,
and Dick was still hoping that McClellan would come with seventy or
eighty thousand more. But within the Confederate lines, where they must
always win and never lose, because losing meant to lose all there was
a stern determination to shatter Pope and his superior numbers before
McClellan could come.
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