This knowledge was not Dick’s alone. It extended to every man in the regiment, and when the colonel urged them to greater speed they responded gladly.
“If we don’t ride faster,” he said, “we won’t be up in time for the taking of Grand Gulf.”
No greater spur was needed and the Winchester regiment went forward as fast as horses could carry them.
“I take it that Grant means to scoop in the Johnnies in detail,” said Warner.
“It seems so,” said Pennington. “This is a big country down here, and we can fight one Confederate army while another is mired up a hundred miles away.
“That’s General Grant’s plan. He doesn’t look like any hero of romance, but he acts like one. He plunges into the middle of the enemy, and if he gets licked he’s up and at ‘em again right away.”
Night closed in, and they stopped at an abandoned plantation—it seemed to Dick that the houses were abandoned everywhere—where they spent the night. The troopers would have willingly pushed on through the darkness, but the horses were so near exhaustion that another hour or two would have broken them down permanently. Moreover, Colonel Winchester did not feel much apprehension of an attack now. Forrest had certainly turned in another direction, and they were too close to the Union lines to be attacked by any other foe.
The house on this plantation was not by any means so large and fine as Bellevue, but, like the other, it had broad piazzas all about it, and Dick, in view of his strenuous experience, was allowed to take his saddle as a pillow and his blankets and go to sleep soon after dark in a comfortable place against the wall.
Never was slumber quicker or sweeter. There was not an unhealthy tissue in his body, and most of his nerves had disappeared in a life amid battles, scoutings, and marchings. He slept heavily all through the night, inhaling new strength and vitality with every breath of the crisp, fresh air. There was no interruption this time, and early in the morning the regiment was up and away.
They descended now into lower grounds near the Mississippi. All around them was a vast and luxuriant vegetation, cut by sluggish streams and bayous. But the same desolation reigned everywhere. The people had fled before the advance of the armies. Late in the afternoon they saw pickets in blue, then the Mississippi, and a little later they rode into a Union camp.
“Dick,” said Colonel Winchester, “I shall want you to go with the senior officers and myself to report to General Grant on the other side of the Mississippi. You rode on that mission to Grierson and he may want to ask you questions.”
Dick was glad to go with them. He was eager to see once more the man who had taken Henry and Donelson and who had hung on at Shiloh until Buell came. The general’s tent was in a grove on a bit of high ground, and he was sitting before it on a little camp stool, smoking a short cigar, and gazing reflectively in the direction of Grand Gulf.
He greeted the three officers quietly but with warmth and then he listened to Colonel Winchester’s detailed account of what he had seen and learned in his raid toward Jackson. It was a long narrative, showing how the Southern forces were scattered, and, as he listened, Grant’s face began to show satisfaction.
But he seldom interrupted.
“And you think they have no large force at Jackson?” he said.
“I’m quite sure of it,” replied Colonel Winchester.
Grant chewed his cigar a little while and then said:
“Grierson is doing well. It was an achievement for you and him to beat off Forrest. It will raise the prestige of our cavalry, which needs it. I believe it was you, Lieutenant Mason, who brought Grierson.”
“It was chiefly, sir, a sergeant named Whitley. I rode with him and outranked him, but he is a veteran of the plains, and it was he who did the real work.”
The general’s stern features were lightened by a smile.
“I’m glad you give the sergeant credit,” he said. “Not many officers would do it.”
He listened a while longer and then the three were permitted to withdraw to their regiment, which was posted back of Grand Gulf, and which had quickly become a part of an army flushed with victory and eager for further action.
Before sunset Dick, Warner, and Pennington looked at Grand Gulf, a little village standing on high cliffs overlooking the Mississippi, just below the point where the dark stream known as the Big Black River empties into the Father of Waters. Around the crown of the heights was a ring of batteries and lower down, enclosing the town, was another ring.
Far off on the Mississippi the three saw puffing black smoke marking the presence of a Union fleet, which never for one instant in the whole course of the war relaxed its grip of steel upon the Confederacy. Dick’s heart thrilled at the sight of the brave ships. He felt then, as most of us have felt since, that whatever happened the American navy would never fail.
“I hear the ships are going to bombard,” said Warner.
“I heard so, too,” said Pennington, “and I heard also that they will have to do it under the most difficult circumstances. The water in front of Grand Gulf is so deep that the ships can’t anchor. It has a swift current, too, making at that point more than six knots an hour. There are powerful eddies, too, and the batteries crowning the cliffs are so high that the cannon of the gunboats will have trouble in reaching them.”
“Still, Mr. Pessimist,” said Dick, “remember what the gunboats did at Fort Henry. You’ll find the same kind of men here.”
“I wasn’t trying to discourage you. I was merely telling the worst first. We’re going to win. We nearly always win here in the West, but it seems to me the country is against us now. This doesn’t look much like the plains, Dick, with its big, deep rivers, its high bluffs along the banks, and its miles and miles of swamp or wet lowlands. How wide would you say the Mississippi is here?”
“Somewhere between a mile and a mile and a half.”
“And they say it’s two or three hundred feet deep. Look at the steamers, boys. How many are there?”
“I count seven pyramids of smoke,” said Warner, “four in one group and three in another. All the pyramids are becoming a little faint as the twilight is advancing. Dick, you call me a cold mathematical person, but this vast river flowing in its deep channel, the dark bluffs up there, and the vast forests would make me feel mighty lonely if you fellows were not here. It’s a long way to Vermont.”
“Fifteen hundred or maybe two thousand miles,” said Dick, “but look how fast the dark is coming. I was wrong in saying it’s coming. It just drops down. The smoke of the steamers has melted into the night, and you don’t see them any more. The surface of the river has turned black as ink, the bluffs of Grand Gulf have gone, and we’ve turned back three or four hundred years.”
“What do you mean by going back three or four hundred years?” asked Warner, looking curiously at Dick.
“Why, don’t you see them out there?”
“See them out there? See what?”
“Why, the queer little ships with the high sides and prows! On my soul, George, they’re the caravels of Spain! Look, they’re stopping! Now they lower something in black over the side of the first caravel. I see a man in a black robe like a priest, holding a cross in his hand and standing at the ship’s edge saying something. I think he’s praying, boys. Now sailors cut the ropes that hold the dark object. It falls into the river and disappears. It’s the burial of De Soto in the Father of Waters which he discovered!”
“Dick, you’re dreaming,” exclaimed Pennington.
“Yes, I know, but once there was a Chinaman who dreamed that he was a lily. When he woke up he didn’t know whether he was a Chinaman who had dreamed he was a lily or a lily now dreaming he was a Chinaman.”
“I like that story, Dick, but you’ve got too much imagination. The tale of the death and burial of De Soto has always been so vivid