"But not likely to remain so long, judging from what we see here," said
Warner. "We hear that this man Grant is a restless sort of a person who
thinks that the way to beat the enemy is just to go in and beat him."

Major Hertford came up at that moment, and he, too, gave Dick a welcome
that warmed his heart. But the boy did not get to remain long with his
old comrades. The Pennsylvania regiment had been much cut down through
the necessity of leaving detachments as guards at various places along
the river, but it was yet enough to make a skeleton and its entity was
preserved, forming a little eastern band among so many westerners.

Dick, at General Grant's order, was transferred permanently to the staff
of Colonel Winchester, and he and the other officers slept that night
in a small building in the outskirts of Cairo. He knew that a great
movement was at hand, but he was becoming so thoroughly inured to danger
and hardship that he slept soundly all through the night.

They heard early the next morning the sound of many trumpets and Colonel
Winchester's regiment formed for embarkation. All the puffing steamers
were now in the Ohio, and Dick saw with them many other vessels which
were not used for carrying soldiers. He saw broad, low boats, with
flat bottoms, their sides sheathed in iron plates. They were floating
batteries moved by powerful engines beneath. Then there were eight huge
mortars, a foot across the muzzle, every one mounted separately upon a
strong barge and towed. Some of the steamers were sheathed in iron also.

Dick's heart throbbed hard when he saw the great equipment. The fighting
ships were under the command of Commodore Foote, an able man, but
General Grant and his lieutenants, General McClernand and General Smith,
commanded the army aboard the transports. On the transport next to them
Dick saw the Pennsylvanians and he waved his hand to his friends who
stood on the deck. They waved back, and Dick felt powerfully the sense
of comradeship. It warmed his heart for them all to be together again,
and it was a source of strength, too.

The steamer that bore his regiment was named the River Queen, and many
of her cabins had been torn away to make more room for the troops who
would sleep in rows on her decks, as thick as buffaloes in a herd. The
soldiers, like all the others whom he saw, were mostly boys. The average
could not be over twenty, and some were not over sixteen. But they had
the adaptability of