Trumpets blew the next morning. All the firing ceased suddenly and the three lads saw a Southern general with several officers of lower rank, riding forward under a white flag. It was Bowen, who came out to meet Grant.
Dick drew a deep, long breath. He knew that this was the end. So did his comrades. A cheer started and swept part of the way along the lines, but the officers quickly stopped it.
“Vicksburg is ours,” said Dick.
“Looks like it,” said Warner.
But Grant told Bowen that he would treat only with Pemberton, and after delays General Pemberton came out. General Grant went forward to meet him. The two stood alone under a tree within seventy yards of the Confederate lines and talked.
Chance or fortune presented a startling coincidence. Almost at the very moment that Grant and Pemberton met under the tree Pickett's men were rising to their feet and preparing for the immortal but fatal charge at Gettysburg. While the cannon had ceased suddenly at Vicksburg they were thundering from many score mouths at Gettysburg. Fortune was launching two thunderbolts upon the Confederacy at the same moment. They were to strike upon fields a thousand miles apart, and the double blow was to be mortal.
But Dick knew nothing of Gettysburg then, nor was he to know anything until days afterward. He certainly had no thought of the East while he watched the two generals under the tree. Dick's comrades were with him, but so intense was their curiosity that none of them spoke. Thousands of men were gazing with the same eagerness, and the Southern earthworks were covered with the defenders.
It was one of the most dramatic scenes in Dick's life, the two men under the tree, and the tens of thousands who watched. Nobody moved. It seemed that they scarcely breathed. After the continuous roar of firing the sudden silence was oppressive, and Dick felt the blood pounding in his ears.
The heat was close and heavy. Black clouds were floating up in the west, and lightning glimmered now and then on the horizon. Although the storm threatened no one noticed. All eyes were still for Grant and Pemberton. After a while each returned to his own command, and there was an armistice until the next day, when the full surrender was made, and Grant and his officers rode into Vicksburg. At the same time Lee was gathering his men for the retreat into the South from the stricken field of Gettysburg. It was the Fourth of July, the eighty-seventh anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and no one could have possibly conceived a more striking celebration.
As soon as Dick was free for a little space he hurried to the ravine, and, as before, found there the open door. He passed in without hesitation.