five o'clock in the morning
After a while a murmur came from the long Southern line along the heights and on the ridges . Horses stirred here and there , cannon , moved to new positions , made sighing sounds as their wheels sank in the mud ; sabres and bayonets clanked , thousands of men whispered to one another . All these varying sounds united into one great soft voice which was like the murmur of a wind through the summer night . Toward five o'clock in the morning , when the darkness had not diminished a whit , a messenger from General Lee rode up with a note for General Jackson . It merely stated that all was ready and to hold the positions that he had taken up the night before . Jackson wrote a brief reply by the light of a lantern that an orderly held , and the messenger galloped away with it . It was the only incident that had occurred in a long time .