noon
It was a region intensely Southern in its sympathies , and it seemed that everybody , including the women and children , had fled before them . Horses and cattle were gone also and its loneliness was accentuated by the fact that not so long before it had been a well-peopled land , where now the houses stood empty and silent . They saw no human beings , save other watchmen on the hills making signals , but they were far away and soon gone . By noon both horses and men showed great fatigue . They had slept but little the night before , and , toughened as they were by war , they had reached the limit of endurance . So the trumpet sounded the halt in a meadow beside a fine stream , and all , save those who were to ride on the outskirts and watch for the enemy , dismounted gladly . A vast drinking followed .