Rumbling down out of the mountain gap toward the broad, open plain of the Susquehanna Valley just ahead, the veterans looked about with approval at the rich farmlands, the open vista, the cool air of the mountains wafting down around them. It was indeed a far cry from the heat, swamps, ague, and snake-infested landscape of the lower Mississippi. These farms looked much more like the neat, well-kept farms of their Midwest.

They were, as well, coming now as saviors and heroes, and they basked in the glory of it. At crossroads and whistle-stop stations young women waved, sang patriotic airs, and passed up baskets of fresh-baked bread, biscuits, pitchers of

cool water and buttermilk, and older men, with a glimmer in their eye and a wink, would hand off bottles of stronger stuff. The reception across the Midwest had been a warm one, especially when a regiment was passing through its home state, but here at the edge of the front lines the outpouring of enthusiasm was bordering on the ecstatic. These were the men who were going to save central Pennsylvania from the Confederate army, and the local citizens were thrilled by their arrival.

The trains passed over the massive viaduct that spanned the Susquehanna a dozen miles north of the city. Earthworks and freshly built blockhouses guarded the approach to the bridge on the western shore. Fortunately, this bridge had not

been dropped, the furthest advance of the Confederates stopping down at the gap just above the city.

Along the narrow road just south of the bridge more fortifications were in place, two batteries of rifled pieces guarding this precious crossing in case any rebel raiders should now try to attack.

The river beneath the bridge was still swollen and turbulent from the torrential rains of the previous three weeks, the water dark, littered with debris that tossed on the waves. As the lead train shifted through a switch and on to the bridge, they passed out of the morning light on the west bank of the river into the shade on the steep slopes of the eastern side, the air cool and refreshing.

Spirits were up. The word had passed that their journey of almost a thousand miles was at an end. Fifers picked up songs. Here and there men joined in, some of the tunes patriotic, more than one off-colored, with loud coughs and throat-clearing at every sight of girls lining the track. A group of young women from a nearby female academy, dressed in patriotic red-white-and-blue dresses, triggered an absolute frenzy of coughing, cheers, and more than one friendly, ribald comment that set the girls to blushing but also giggling in response.

The train thundered out of the pass into the broad, open panorama of the Susquehanna Valley, directly ahead the dome of the state capitol, church spires, and factory smokestacks of Harrisburg. All could see the flame-scorched piers of the destroyed covered bridge dropped during the Gettysburg campaign, and the approaches to the pontoon bridge that had been swept away in the flood. Several artillery batteries lined the bank of the river, the guns well dug in, the crews lounging about, waving as the first train passed, the veterans replying politely but holding themselves a bit aloof. For, after all, they were fresh from victory, and the ones waving were not. The armies of the West were now here to teach them how to do it right

Interestingly, a small knot of horsemen was stationed on the far bank, sitting in a clearing partway up the slope of the mountain… advanced rebel scouts, signal flags fluttering. The Confederate outpost had been dislodged several times by small raiding forces coming over from Harrisburg, but as quickly as the Yankees withdrew, the rebs came back to continue their observations of the goings-on inside the state capital.

At the sight of the rebs, the men stood on the flatcars, taunting and waving, shouting that Grant's boys were now here to set things right. Several of the rebel cavalry waved back.

The lead train began to slow, the engineer merrily playing his whistle with a skilled hand, trying to squeeze out the opening bar to "Rally Round the Flag." The tune didn't carry too well, but the rhythm was plain, and some of the men picked up the song, though this was an army that didn't hold much with such patriotic mush. And anyway, in their minds that had been a marching song of the Army of the Potomac and not of the armies of the West.

The crowds along the siding were increasing, people rushing down side streets, cheering, waving, Union infantry joining in, their greeters dressed in bright, new, unstained uniforms.

In contrast, these boys of McPherson's corps were a hard, grizzled lot. Uniforms had long ago faded in the harsh Mississippi sun, the color all but bleaching out to a light, tattered blue. Pant legs were frayed; many had patches sewn on thighs and knees and had backsides stained darkly from countless nights of sitting around campfires. Headgear was non-distinct; few wore kepis, most favoring broad-brimmed hats of brown, black, or gray, which were just as faded and holed as the uniforms.

Hardly a backpack was to be found, the men having long ago adopted a simple horseshoe collar roll of vulcanized ground cloth, with a shelter half, one blanket, and a few changes of socks and a shirt rolled inside. Haversacks were stuffed with some rations; extra food-such as a heavy slice of smoked ham, or a chicken waiting to be plucked-was tied to the strap of the haversack. Of course cartridge boxes were crammed with forty rounds, ten or twenty extra cartridges stuffed into pockets. Maybe a Bible was in the breast pocket of their four-button wool jackets, sometimes riding alongside a deck of cards, a flask of good corn liquor, or some of the new picture cards from Paris. Given the largesse of civilians along the way, most canteens were filled with a mixture of water and whiskey, rum, applejack, or, from the hills of western Pennsylvania, a good solid load of clear, white mountain lightning.

They were veterans, easy in their self-confidence, inured to hardship, long ago disabused of any vague dreams of glory. They had seen what glory led to. They knew their job and would see it through to the end, but they would do so with a quiet, no-nonsense determination. They had signed on for three years, back in the heady days of 1861. Shiloh, Corinth, Fort Donelson, the swamps of Louisiana had forever dimmed the visions and dreams of those early days. What compelled them now was the pride in their regiments and the friendship of their comrades, and no vainglorious words of beribboned generals would sway them one way or the other. It was their job and that was it. War no longer held any illusions for them.

These veterans of the West held the Eastern soldiers who were greeting them with a sort of bemused contempt. Granted, they were on the same side in this war, but it was beyond their understanding how anyone could let a rebel drive them out Where they came from, it was the rebels who did the running, and so it would be here as well. They had come to save the East and they found that concept amusing. They would lord it over the Eastern boys as was their right but then they would see it through to the finish.

They held Grant in supreme confidence. He was one of them. In the shadows of evening, when he would at times walk through their camps, few would actually notice his passing. He was as rumpled as they were, unshaven, battered hat pulled down low, a man you would never notice in a crowd, the only giveaway the almost-permanent cigar clenched in his teeth, glowing like a smokestack. As quickly as it burned to a stub, another would be lit. On a rainy march you might see him sitting astride his horse by the side of the road, eyes watchful, hat brim soaked and dripping, silent, perhaps offering an occasional word of encouragement, but woe betide the man who cheered him; the response was always an icy stare.