They had tasted so much of defeat and drawn battle
in the east that they had an actual physical sense of better things in
the west. The horizons were wider, the mountains were lower, and there
was not so much enveloping forest. They did not have the strangling
sensation, mental only, which came from the fear that hostile armies
would suddenly rush from the woods and fall upon their flank.
Besides, there was Shiloh. After all, they had won Shiloh, and the
coming of this very Buell who led them now had enabled them to win it.
And Shiloh was the only great battle that they had yet really won.
They camped that night in the dry fields. The Winchester regiment was a
part of the division under McCook, while Buell with the rest of the army
was some miles away. It was still warm, although October was now seven
days old, and Dick had never before heard the grass and leaves rustle so
dryly under the wind. Off in the direction of Perryville they saw the
dim gleam of red, and they knew it came from the camp-fires of the
Southern army. Buell had in his detached divisions sixty thousand men,
most of them veterans and Dick believed that if they were brought
together victory was absolutely sure on the morrow.
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