work actively now, but he felt that they were
saved. The deep river, although it was on their flank, seemed to flow as
a barrier against the foe, and it was, in fact, a barrier more and more,
as without its command the second Union army could never have come to
the relief of the first.

Dick, after a while, saw Colonel Winchester, and other officers near
him. They were talking of their losses. They gave the names of many
generals and colonels who had been killed. Presently they moved away,
and he fell into an uneasy sleep, or rather doze, from which he was
awakened after a while by a heavy rumbling sound of a distant cannonade.

The boy sprang up, wondering why any one should wish to renew the battle
in the middle of the night, and then he saw that it was no battle. The
sound was thunder rolling heavily on the southern horizon, and the night
had become very dark. Vivid flashes of lightning cut the sky, and a
strong wind rushed among the trees. Heavy drops of water struck him in
the face and then the rain swept down.

Dick did not seek protection from the storm, nor did any of those near
him. The cool drops were grateful to their faces after the heat and
strife of the day. Their pulses became stronger, and the blood flowed
in a quickened torrent through their veins. They let it pour upon them,
merely seeking to keep their ammunition dry.

Ten thousand wounded were yet lying untouched in the forest, but the
rain was grateful to them, too. When they could they turned their
fevered faces up to it that it might beat upon them and bring grateful
coolness.

Deep in the night a council like that of the Southern generals was held
in the Northern camp, also. Grant, his face an expressionless mask,
presided, and said but little. Buell, Sherman, McClernand, Nelson,
Wallace and others, were there, and Buell and Sherman, like their chief,
spoke little. The three men upon whom most rested were very taciturn
that night, but it is likely that extraordinary thoughts were passing in
the minds of every one of the three.

Grant, after a day in which any one of a dozen chances would have
wrecked him, must have concluded that in very deed and truth he was the
favorite child of Fortune. When one is saved again and again from the
very verge he begins to believe that failure is impossible, and in that
very belief lies the greatest guard against failure.

It is said of Grant that in the night after his great defeat around the
church of S