October, even, did not seem able to break that
singular heat, and the dust was soon billowing about them in columns,
stinging and burning them. The sergeant the night before had taken a
short cut through the hills, but the brigades, needing wide spaces,
marched along the roads and through the fields. A portion of their own
army was hidden from them by ridges and forest, and Dick did not know
whether Buell with the other half of the army had come up.
After a long and exhausting march they stopped, and the Winchester
regiment and the Ohio lads concluded that they had been wrong after all.
No battle would be fought that day. They were willing now, too, to
postpone it, as they were almost exhausted by heat and thirst, and that
stinging, burning dust was maddening. A portion of their line rested on
the first creek, and they drank eagerly of the muddy water. Dick saw
before him fields in which the corn stood thick and heavy. The fields
were divided by hedges which cut off the view somewhat and which the
sergeant said would furnish great ambush for sharpshooters.
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