valry columns advanced into the marshes
about Petersburg. All fear that they would be sent to cooperate with
Sherman passed, and Dick knew that the Winchester men would be in the
final struggle with Lee, a struggle the success of which he felt assured.

April was not far away. The fierce winter was broken up completely,
but the spring rains were uncommonly heavy and much of the low country
about Petersburg was flooded, making it difficult for cavalry and
impossible for infantry. Nevertheless the army of Grant, with Sheridan
now as a striking arm, began to close in on the beleaguered men in gray.
Lee had held the trenches before Petersburg many months, keeping at bay
a resolute and powerful army, led by an able and tenacious general, but
it was evident now that he could not continue to hold them. Sheridan's
victorious force on his flank made it impossible.

The Winchester men were in a skirmish or two, but for a few days most
of their work was maneuvering, that is, they were continually riding in
search of better positions. At times, the rain still poured, but the
three young captains were so full of expectancy that they scarcely
noticed it. Dick often heard the trumpets singing across the marshes,
and now and then he saw the Confederate skirmishers and the roofs of
Petersburg. He beheld too with his own eyes the circle of steel closing
about the last hope of the Confederacy, and he felt every day, with
increasing strength, that the end was near.

But the outside world did not realize that the great war was to close so
suddenly. It had raged with the utmost violence for four years and it
seemed the normal condition in America. Huge battles had been fought,
and they had ended in nothing. Three years before, McClellan had been
nearer to Richmond than Grant now was, and yet he had been driven away.
Lee and Jackson had won brilliant victories or had held the Union numbers
to a draw, and to those looking from far away the end seemed as distant
as ever. At that very moment, they were saying in Europe that the
Confederacy was invincible, and that it was stronger than it had been a
year or two years earlier.

Dick, all unconscious of distant opinion, watched the tightening of the
steel belt, and helped in the task. He and his comrades never doubted.
They knew that Sherman had crushed the Southeast, and that Thomas,
that stern old Rock of Chickamauga, had annihilated the Southern army
of Hood at Nashville. Dick wa