As if in reply came the sound of a saber falling from a man's hand and striking on a stone. Under his very eyes and just as he was putting out his hand to grip the others Morrison saw Herbert Cary sinking slowly to the ground.
And then, through the yellow dust clouds and the powder smoke and all the horrid reek of war, a child came running with outstretched arms and piteous voice—a frightened child, weeping for the father who had thrown himself headlong into peril to save another's life and who, perhaps, had lost his own.
CHAPTER IX
The headquarters of the Army of the Potomac on the morning of August 4, 1864, were at City Point near where the Appomattox meets the James. Here the grim, silent man in whose hands lay the destinies of the United States sent out the telegrams which kept the Federal forces gnawing at the cage in which Lee had shut himself and meanwhile held to his strategic position south of Richmond. To his left and west lay Petersburg still unconquered, but Petersburg could wait, for Early's gray clad troopers were scourging the Shenandoah and the menace must be removed. To this end Grant had sent a telegram to Washington three days before expressing in unmistakable terms what he wished General Sheridan and his cavalry to accomplish. They were to go over into the Shenandoah and, putting themselves south of the enemy, follow him to the death. To which telegram the tall, lank, furrow-faced man in the White House whose kindly heart was bursting with the strain replied in characteristic fashion and told him that his purpose was exactly right. And then, with a gleam of humor, warned him against influences in Washington which would prevent its carrying out unless he forced it.
This message had come but a few minutes before and it had been received with silent satisfaction for Grant knew now that Abraham Lincoln and he were in perfect accord as to the means for swiftly bringing on the end. But the plans must be well laid and to that end he must leave City Point within a few hours and go north. And so he was standing at a window of his headquarters this morning with his eyes resting unseeingly on the camp, while his cool, quiet mind steadily forged out his schemes.
Unlike the headquarters of "play" armies where all is noise and confusion and bloodied orderlies throw themselves off of plunging horses and gasp out their reports, the room in which General Grant did his work was strangely quiet.
It was a large, square room with high ceiling and wall paper which had defied all the arts of Europe to render interesting in design. Furniture was neither plentiful nor comfortable—a slippery, black horse-hair sofa, a few horse-hair chairs and, at one side of the room, a table and a desk, littered with papers, maps and files. At the table Grant's adjutant, Forbes, sat writing. Facing him was the door opening out into the hallway of the house where two sentries stood on guard. In the silence which pervaded the room and in the quiet application to the work in hand there was a perfect reflection of the mind of him who stood impassive at the window with his back turned, a faint blue cloud of cigar smoke rising above his head.
A quick step sounded in the corridor—the step of one who bears a message. An orderly appeared in the doorway, spoke to the two sentries and was passed in with a salute to Forbes.
"For General Grant," he said, holding out a folded note of white paper. "Personal from Lieutenant Harris, sir."