Excerpt from Brother Against Brother, or the Tompkins Mystery: A Story of the Great American Rebellion Thick, misty clouds overcast the sky peals of thunder in the distance came rolling nearer and nearer, until they burst into one prolonged roar just above a lumbering old stage coach slowly making its way over the muddy roads of a Vir ginia post route, the driver incessantly cracking his long whip over the backs of his jaded horses, and urging them, with shouts and exclamations, to accelerate their speed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.