Dick did not sleep that night.  All had received orders to hold themselves in readiness for an instant march, and his blood tingled with expectancy.  At midnight the Winchester regiment rode off to the left to join the cavalry under Wilson which was to lead the advance, moving along a pike road and then crossing the little river Opequan.

Dick rode close behind Colonel Winchester and Warner and Pennington were on either side of him.  Not far away from them was Sergeant Whitley, ready for use as a scout.  Shepard had disappeared already in the darkness.  They joined Wilson’s command and waited in silence.  At three o’clock in the morning the word to advance was given and the whole division marched forward in the starlight.

They had not gone far before Shepard rode back telling them that the crossing of the Opequan was guarded by Confederate troops.  The cavalry increased their speed.  After the long period of inaction they were anxious to come to grips with their foe.  Dick still rode knee to knee with Warner and Pennington, as they went on at a rapid pace in the starlight, the fields and strips of forest gliding past.  Men on horseback talk less at night than in the day and moreover these had little to say.  Their part was action, and they were waiting to see what the little Opequan would disclose to them.

“Do you think they’ll have a big force at the river?” asked Pennington.

“No,” replied Dick.  “I fancy from what we’ve heard of Early’s army that he won’t have the men to spare.”

“But we can look for a brush there,” said Warner.

The night began to darken as a premonition of the coming dawn, a veil of vapor was drawn before the stars, trees blended together and the air became chill.  Then the vapor was pierced in the east by a lance of light.  The rift widened, and the pale light of the first dawn appeared over the hills.  Dick, using his glasses, saw a flash which he knew was the Opequan.  And with that silvery gleam of water came other flashes of red and rapid crackling reports.  The Southern sharpshooters along the stream were already opening fire.

A great shout went up from the cavalry.  All the forces restrained so long in these young men burst forth.  The dawn was now deepening rapidly, its pallor turning to silver, and the river, for a long length, lay clear to view before them.  Trumpets to right and left and in the center sounded the charge, the mellow notes coming back in many echoes.

The horsemen firing their own carbines and swinging aloft their sabers, galloped forward in a mighty rush.  The beat of hundreds of hoofs made a steady sound, insistent and threatening.  The yellow light of the sun, replacing the silver of the first dawn, gilded them with gold, glittering on the upraised blades and tense faces.  The bullets of the Southern sharpshooters, in the bushes and trees along the Opequan, crashed among them, and horses and men went down, but the mighty sweep of the mass was not delayed for an instant.