"You can go back with me," said Grant. "That horse of yours is Bob, isn't it?" Grant never forgot a horse he had once ridden.
Within an hour the General and his staff, with a small cavalry escort, started for Sheridan's headquarters. By ten that night the two were together. Sheridan was almost crying over the orders Meade had given him. By midnight Sheridan was happy. "I explained to Meade," say the "Personal Memoirs," "that we did not want to follow the enemy; we wanted to get ahead of him; and that his orders would allow the enemy to escape.... Meade changed his orders at once."
That change of orders incidentally put Tom Strong the next day into the hottest fight of his life. This was the battle of Sailor's Creek, almost forgotten since amid the mightier happenings of that wonderful April week, but never forgotten by Tom Strong. Our forces had attacked Lee's retreating legions, retreating toward the provision trains that were their only hope of food. The fight was fierce. We had attacked with both infantry and cavalry, but our gallant fellow-countrymen held their lines unbroken. Then with a thunder of wheels our field artillery came into action. The Confederate guns were shelling the hillside up which the plunging horses drew our cannon. There were six horses in each team, an artilleryman riding each near horse and holding the off horse of the pair by a bridle. Tom had come up with orders and was standing by General Wright as the guns bounded up the hillside. Bob stood behind his master, whinnying a bit with excitement.
General Wright snapped his watch shut impatiently.
"They're ten minutes late," he complained. "We're beaten if we don't get 'em into action instantly. Good Heavens! there goes our first gun to destruction!"
A Confederate shell had struck and burst close to the leaders. A fragment of it swept the foremost rider from his seat and from life. The two horses he had handled reared, plunged, jumped to one side. The six horses were huddled into a frightened heap. The two other soldiers could do nothing with the leaders out of control. The gun stopped short. And behind it stopped all of one of the two lines of advancing artillery.
"Take that gun into action!"
Tom heard the General's brief command and ran toward the huddled horses. He sprang into the saddle, seized both bridles, and drove on. As he did so, another Confederate shell burst beside the off horse. Its fragments spared the foremost rider this time, but they dealt death to one of his two comrades. The man in control of the wheelers threw his right arm out and toppled over into the road, dead before the heavy cannon-wheel crashed and crushed over him. The leaders, so skillfully handled that their very fear made them run more madly into danger, tore ahead, keeping the other four horses galloping behind them, until the gun was in position. It roared the news of its coming with a well-aimed shot into the midst of the enemy's forces.
Tom Takes a Battery Into Action