“Thanks,” said the little hero, drawing himself up. “I always told the recruiting officers, when I offered myself, that I could do good military service for my country, but they never agreed with me, and in the face of the fact that almost every great martial hero the world has known, from Alexander to Napoleon, was a little man, they repeatedly refused me. Yes, they refused me until things came to such a pass that for want of men they were compelled, like the feast giver in the Bible, to call in ‘the maimed, the halt and the blind.’ The Invalid Corps, you know, Colonel. Then at length they consented to take me.”
“And you have done good service to your country, and great credit to yourself, Major Mim,” answered Justin.
With Billingcoo Justin did not happen to come in contact at all.
And now, about the last of January, the most energetic arrangements were made to close in around Petersburg and Richmond. The whole army was in the most active preparation.
The first object was to seize the South Side Railroad.
To absorb the attention of the enemy, a heavy cannonading was opened upon Petersburg, hurling an overwhelming tempest of shot and shell into the city.
Under cover of this terrific assault in the front, the sick, the wounded, the sutlers, the camp followers, with all their baggage, and all other animate and inanimate incumbrances to the movements of the army, were dispatched by railroad to City Point, and all serviceable troops and supplies were brought up and massed on the left.
As early as three o’clock on Sunday, the fifth of February, under cover of the darkness, Gregg’s division of cavalry commenced its march, followed immediately by the Fifth and Second Corps. The weather was glorious, the roads in the best condition, and the men in the best spirits.
It was rather a strange coincidence that Colonel Rosenthal’s last engagement, in which he was wounded and taken prisoner, had been in a charge upon Wade Hampton’s cavalry, and that his first encounter on rejoining his regiment should be with the same brave foe. But such were the facts, for—
They had advanced but a little way beyond Ream’s Station, on the Dinwiddie Court House Road, when they were met by Wade Hampton’s cavalry, with whom they had a fierce contest for the right of way, before they could pass. But again they were victorious, and rushed onward like a whirlwind towards Dinwiddie Court House, encountering and overwhelming the enemy at every post along the road.