There is nothing here but a creek and a house called the Henry House, a farm and a bedridden woman and people with country faces. There is nothing for you here. And La Haye Sainte was a quiet farm and the mile by it a quiet mile. And Lexington was a place to work in like any one of a dozen dull, little places. And they raised good crops at Blenheim till the soldiers came and spoiled the crops for a while.

The red evening fades into twilight, the crows have gone to their trees, the slow, hot stars are emerging. It is cooler now on the hill⁠—and in the camps it is cooler, where the untried soldiers find their bivouac hard. Where, from North and South, the blind wrestlers of armies converge on the forgotten house like the double pincers of an iron claw converging. And Johnston hurries his tired brigades from the Valley, to bring them up in time before McDowell can fall on Beauregard.