"I pray that we may never meet thus," said Abner. "Rather would I have you find among the slain the body of one you no longer own as a brother."
One of the stable men now appeared, leading Abner's horse. Oleah's hot passion was gone; his eyes were misty, his voice was choked. The brothers clasped hands in silence, and five minutes later Abner was galloping down the great road.
A curious scene presented itself at the Junction. But before we attempt to describe the former, we will give the reader some idea of the latter. The Junction was the terminus of one railroad and the junction of two others. One of the railroads led to Washington, one to Pittsburg, and one to Baltimore. It was not a large town; a village of perhaps twelve or fifteen hundred inhabitants, blackened by the smoke of engines. The surrounding country was broken and rough, with hills rising upon hills, deep ravines, rocky gorges, and winding streams, lined with a luxuriant growth of pine and maple, while far away in the distance the gray peaks of mountains could be seen.
The Junction was about twenty miles north-east of Snagtown, there being no railroad to the latter place, though there was a hard beaten turnpike, with a daily mail-coach running between the two. Some of the houses about the Junction were of brick, but the majority of wood. There were neat little cottages, looking like fairy abodes, amid the green vines and blooming flowers of Spring-time, and there were cottages neither neat nor fairy-like in aspect; the log hovel, showing signs of decay and neglect. But the village, taken as a whole, was a very pretty place.
It was about the 1st of May. The President had called for eighty-two thousand more men, finding seventy-five thousand wholly inadequate to put down the rebellion. Virginia was at this period in a constant state of alarm. Sumter had fallen, Harper's Ferry and Norfolk Navy-yard were in the hands of the rebels, while a mob, in the city of Baltimore, had attacked Massachusetts and Pennsylvania troops on their way to the defense of Washington.
The Federal Government, on the other hand, was straining every nerve. It had collected about Washington, as speedily as possible, under General Scott, the veteran hero of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, and the Mexican War, the volunteers who flocked to their country's defense in answer to the President's call. Volunteer companies were raising all over the country. In the extreme Northern States, in the defense of the Federal Government; in the extreme Southern States, in defense of the Confederate Government, and in some of the Middle and Western States, companies were raised for both sides. In fact, there were men in some of the more Northern slave States, who mustered with the rebels and were actually in the Confederate service before they knew it.