Since the rebellion had assumed such proportions, and men, who had made war with pen and tongue had taken up the sword, Mr. Tompkins had been careful not to allude to the merits of either cause in his family. He had been made to feel the bitterness of the strife that, in dividing the Nation, had divided his home. He felt most keenly a parent's agony at having his two sons in hostile armies. That, at any hour or moment, they might meet in opposing ranks, was a horrible possibility, which, do what he would, he could not banish from his mind. He knew, too, that the companion of his life held views antagonistic to his own on the question of the war. So he was reticent on questions on which every one else was eagerly expressing opinions; but in his heart, he was firmly convinced of the justice of the Union cause. Though Mrs. Tompkins, like her husband, was silent as to her belief, she was as firmly convinced that the cause of the South was just. How could she, with all her native pride and prejudices, look on the subject in any other light? Her sunny home, the home of her childhood, the pride of her maturer years, was to be the field of contest. One side must win. On one side were arrayed the cold, calculating strangers of the North; on the other the warm-hearted, generous people of the South; but what endeared to her, more than any other circumstance, the Southern cause, was that it was based on principles which she believed just and right. Americans, more than any other Nation on earth, fight from principle. Other Nations blindly follow king or emperor, regardless of right or wrong, but the American fights from principle approved by his judgment and based upon his earnest convictions. Mr. Tompkins did not reflect on the dangers that might arise to himself from visiting two hostile armies. It was the day after his visit to the Junction that he chanced to be at Snagtown. He found the village in a state of excitement in consequence of "a large army of United States soldiers" having passed on their way to Wolf Creek. The villagers, unaccustomed to the sight of large bodies of men, put the number of Captain Wardle's command at several thousand, when in reality it did not exceed, including his own company and the others with him, one hundred and fifty. "Where were they going?" inquired Mr. Tompkins of the village grocer. "Dunno," was the reply. "Which way did they go?" "Towards the Twin Mountains." "There is no question as to where they was goin'," said the blacksmith. "They was takin' a bee line for the camp on Wolf Creek, and they're going to gobble up our boys along there; but although they outnumber them twenty to one, they'll find the boys game." "Where did these troops come from?" asked Mr. Tompkins. "From the Junction." Mr. Tompkins very well knew that the entire force at the Junction did not number over four hundred men.