Chapter Two is the story of Captain Walter Fountain, an Ohio regimental adjutant in the Union Army encamped at Pittsburg Landing. He is the Officer of the Day and whiles away the Tennessee night by writing a letter to his wife, Martha. Through his thoughts, the reader learns about the Union army's slow but steady advance through Tennessee under the resolute leadership of Ulysses Grant. Fountain is homesick but confident that the war will be over soon. He interacts with the regimental mascot, a dog named Bango. As he commits his feelings and hopes to paper, he begins to notice that the birds and other woodland creatures have become noisier and more agitated. Suddenly hundreds of Confederate soldiers burst out of the forest, charging headlong upon Fountain and the other unsuspecting union troops. The chapter ends abruptly, and the reader assumes that Fountain is killed in the initial assault.