Then, after a solid breakfast, he went ashore with the good wishes of Captain Hays, and, a few hours later, he was with the Union army and his own regiment. Again he was welcomed as one dead and his own heart was full of rejoicing because all of his friends were alive. Warner alone had been wounded, a bullet cutting into his shoulder, but not hurting him much. He wore a bandage, his face had a becoming pallor, and Pennington charged that he was making the most of it.
“But it was an awful day,” said Warner, “and there's a lot of gloom in the camp. Still, we're not moving away and the reinforcements are coming.”
Dick explained to Colonel Winchester why he had failed in his mission, and the colonel promised to report in turn to the commander that the hand of God had intervened. Dick's conscience was now at rest, and he resumed at once his duties with the regiment.
Many days passed. While Grant did not make any other attack upon Vicksburg his circle of steel grew tighter, and the rain of shells and bombs upon the devoted town never ceased. Reinforcements poured forward. His army rose to nearly eighty thousand men, and Johnston, hovering near, gathering together what men he could, did not dare to strike. Dick was reminded more than once of Caesar's famous siege of Alesia, about which he had read not so long ago in Dr. Russell's academy at Pendleton.
There were long, long days of intrenching, skirmishing and idleness. May turned into June, and still the steel coil enclosed Vicksburg. Here the Union men were hopeful, but the news from the East was bad. Not much filtered through, and none of it struck a happy note. Lee, with his invincible legions, was still sweeping northward. Doubtless the Confederate hosts now trod the soil of a free State, and Dick and his comrades feared in their very souls that Lee was marching to another great victory.
“I wish I could hear from Harry Kenton,” said Dick to Warner. “I'd like to know whether he passed through Chancellorsville safely.”
“Don't you worry about him,” said Warner. “That rebel cousin of yours has luck. He also has skill. Let x equal luck and y skill. Now x plus y equals the combination of luck and skill, which is safety. That proves to me mathematically that he is unharmed and that he is riding northward—to defeat, I hope.”
“We've got to win here,” said Dick. “If we don't, I'm thinking the cause of the Union will be more than doubtful. We don't seem to have the generals in the East that we have in the West. Our leaders hang on here and they don't overestimate the enemy.”
“That's so,” said Pennington. “Now, I wonder what 'Pap' Thomas is doing.”
“He's somewhere in Tennessee, I suppose, watching Bragg,” said Dick. “That's a man I like, and, I think, after this affair here is over, we may go back to his command. If we do succeed in taking Vicksburg, it seems likely to me that the heavy fighting will be up there in Tennessee, where Bragg's army is.”