"General McClellan must have been waiting for me," he said. "Tell him
I've come."
But General McClellan did not yet move. The last long hour of the day
passed. The sun set in red and gold behind the western mountains,
and the Army of the Potomac still rested in its camp, although privates
even knew that precious hours were being lost, and that booming cannon
might already be telling the defenders of Harper's Ferry that Jackson was
at hand.
Nor were they far wrong. While McClellan lingered on through the night,
never moving from his camp, Jackson and his generals were pushing forward
with fiery energy and at dawn the next day had surrounded Harper's Ferry
and its doomed garrison of more than twelve thousand men.
But these were things that Dick could not guess that night. One small
detachment had been sent ahead by McClellan, chiefly for scouting
purposes, and in the darkness the boy who had gone a little distance
forward with Colonel Winchester heard the booming of cannon. It was a
faint sound but unmistakable, and Dick glanced at his chief.
"That detachment has come into contact with the rebels somewhere there in
the mountains," he said, "and the ridges and valleys are bringing us the
echoes.
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