Dick, who had been lying under cover just behind the crest of one of the low ridges, suddenly heard the loud beating of his heart. He did not know, for a moment or two, that the sound came so distinctly because the mighty tumult which had been raging around him all day had ceased, as if by a concerted signal. Those blinding flashes of flame no longer came from the forest before him, the shot and shell quit their horrible screaming, and the air was free from the unpleasant hiss of countless bullets.  
He stretched himself a little and stood up. The lads all around him were standing up, and were beginning to talk to each other in the high-pitched, shouting voices that they had been compelled to use all day long, not yet realizing to the full that the tumult of the battle had ceased. The boy felt stiff and sore in every bone and muscle, and, although the cannon and rifles were silent, there was still a hollow roaring in his ears. His eyes were yet dim from the smoke, and his head felt heavy and dull. He gazed vacantly at the forest in front of him, and wondered dimly why the Southern army was not still there, attacking, as it had attacked for so many hours.
 
But the deep woods were silent and empty. Coils and streamers of smoke floated about among the trees, and suddenly a gray squirrel hopped out on a bough and began to chatter wildly. Dick, despite himself, laughed, but the laugh was hysterical. He could appreciate the feelings of the squirrel, which probably had been imprisoned in a hollow of the tree all day long, listening to this tremendous battle, and squirrels were not used to such battles. It was a trifle that made him laugh, but everything was out of proportion now. Life did not go on in the usual way at all. The ordinary occupations were gone, and people spent most of their time trying to kill one another.
 
He rubbed his hands across his eyes and cleared them of the smoke. The battle was certainly over for the day at least, and neither he nor his comrades had sufficient vitality yet to think of the morrow. The twilight was fast deepening into night. The last rosy glow of the sun faded, and thick darkness enveloped the vast forest, in which twenty thousand men had fallen, and in which most of them yet lay, the wounded with the dead.
 
There was presently a deep boom from the river, and a shell fired by one of the gunboats curved far over their heads and dropped into the forest, where the Southern army was encamped. All through the night and at short but regular intervals the gunboats maintained this warning fire, heartening the union soldiers, and telling them at every discharge that however they might have to fight for the land, the water was always theirs.
 
Dick saw Colonel Winchester going among his men, and pulling himself together he saluted his chief.
 
“Any orders, sir?” he said.
 
“No, Dick, my boy, none for the present,” replied the colonel, a little sadly. “Half of my poor regiment is killed or wounded, and the rest are so exhausted that they are barely able to move. But they fought magnificently, Dick! They had to, or be crushed! It is only here that we have withstood the rush of the Southern army, and it is probable that we, too, would have gone had not night come to our help.”
 
“Then we have been beaten?”
 
“Yes, Dick, we have been beaten, and beaten badly. It was the surprise that did it. How on earth we could have let the Southern army creep upon us and strike unaware I don't understand. But Dick, my boy, there will be another battle tomorrow, and it may tell a different tale. Some prisoners whom we have taken say that Johnston has been killed, and Beauregard is no such leader as he.”
 
“Will the army of General Buell reach us tonight?”
 
“Buell, himself, is here. He has been with Grant for some time, and all his brigades are marching at the double quick. Lew Wallace arrived less than half an hour ago with seven thousand men fresh and eager for battle. Dick! Dick, my boy, we'll have forty thousand new troops on the field at the next dawn, and before God we'll wipe out the disgrace of today! Listen to the big guns from the boats as they speak at intervals! Why, I can understand the very words they speak! They are saying to the Southern army: 'Look out! Look out! We're coming in the morning, and it's we who'll attack now!'”
 
Dick saw that Colonel Winchester himself was excited. The pupils of his eyes were dilated, and a red spot glowed in either cheek. Like all the other officers he was stung by the surprise and defeat, and he could barely wait for the morning and revenge.
 
Colonel Winchester walked away to a council that had been called, and Dick turned to Pennington and Warner, who were not hurt, save for slight wounds. Warner had recovered his poise, and was soon as calm and dry as ever.
 
“Dick,” he said, “we're some distance from where we started this morning. There's nothing like being shoved along when you don't want to go. The next time they tell me there's nothing in a thicket I expect to search it and find a rebel army at least a hundred thousand strong right in the middle of it.”
 
“How large do you suppose the Southern army was?” asked Pennington.
 
“I had a number of looks at it,” replied Warner, “and I should say from the way it acted that it numbered at least three million men. I know that at times not less than ten thousand were aiming their rifles at my own poor and unworthy person. What a waste of energy for so many men to shoot at me all at once. I wish the Johnnies would go away and let us alone!”
 
The last words were high-pitched and excited. His habitual self-control broke down for a moment, and the tremendous excitement and nervous tension of the day found vent in his voice. But in a few seconds he recovered himself and looked rather ashamed.
 
“Boys,” he said, “I apologize.”
 
“You needn't,” said Pennington. “There have been times today when I felt brave as a lion, and lots of other times I was scared most to death. It would have helped me a lot then, if I could have opened my mouth and yelled at the top of my voice.”
 
Sergeant Daniel Whitley was leaning against a stump, and while he was calmly lighting a pipe he regarded the three boys with a benevolent gaze.
 
“None of you need be ashamed of bein' scared,” he said. “I've been in a lot of fights myself, though all of them were mere skirmishes when put alongside of this, an' I've been scared a heap today. I've been scared for myself, an' I've been scared for the regiment, an' I've been scared for the whole army, an' I've been scared on general principles, but here we are, alive an' kickin', an' we ought to feel powerful thankful for that.”
 
“We are,” said Dick. Then he rubbed his head as if some sudden thought had occurred to him.
 
“What is it, Dick?” asked Warner.
 
“I've realized all at once that I'm tremendously hungry. The Confederates broke up our breakfast. We never had time to think of dinner, and now its nothing to eat.”
 
“Me, too,” said Pennington. “If you were to hit me in the stomach I'd give back a hollow sound like a drum. Why don't somebody ring the supper bell?”
 
But fires were soon lighted along their whole front, and provisions were brought up from the rear and from the steamers. The soldiers, feeling their strength returning, ate ravenously. They also talked much of the battle. Many of them were yet under the influence of hysterical excitement. They told extraordinary stories of the things they had seen and done, and they believed all they told were true. They ate fiercely, at first almost like wolves, but after a while they resolved into their true state as amiable young human beings and were ashamed of themselves.
 
All the while Buell's army of the Ohio was passing over the river and joining Grant's army of the Tennessee. Regiment after regiment and brigade after brigade crossed. The guns that Nelson had been forced to leave behind were also brought up and were taken over with the other batteries. While the shattered remnants of the army of the Tennessee were resting, the fresh army of the Ohio was marching by it in the late hours of the night in order to face the Southern foe in the morning.
 
The Southern army itself lay deep in the woods from which it had driven its enemy. Always the assailant through the day, its losses had been immense. Many thousands had fallen, and no new troops were coming to take their place. Continual reinforcements came to the North throughout the night, not a soldier came to the South. Beauregard, at dawn, would have to face twice his numbers, at least half of whom were fresh troops.
 
Another conference was held by the Southern generals in the forest, but now the central figure, the great Johnston, was gone. The others, however, summoned their courage anew, and passed the whole night arranging their forces, cheering the men, and preparing for the morn. Their scouts and skirmishers kept watch on the Northern camp, and the Southerners believed that while they had whipped only one army the day before, they could whip two on the morrow.
 
Dick and his friends meanwhile were lying on the earth, resting, but not able to sleep. The nerves, drawn so tightly by the day's work, were not yet relaxed wholly. A deep apathy seized them all. Dick, from a high point on which he lay, saw the dark surface of the Tennessee, and the lights on the puffing steamers as they crossed, bearing the Army of the Ohio. His mind did not 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 Shiloh, he was still confident, that he told his generals they would certainly win on the morrow, and he reminded them that if the union army had suffered terribly, the Southern army must have suffered almost equally so, and would face them at dawn with numbers far less than their own. He had not displayed the greatest skill, but he had shown the greatest moral courage, and now on the night between battles it was that quality that was needed most.
 
Dick, not having slept any the night before, and having passed through a day of fierce battle, was overcome after midnight, and sank into a sleep that was mere lethargy. He awoke once before dawn and remembered, but vaguely, all that had happened. Yet he was conscious that there was much movement in the forest. He heard the tread of many feet, the sound of commands, the neigh of horses and the rumbling of cannon wheels. The Army of the Ohio was passing to the exposed flank of the Army of the Tennessee and at dawn it would all be in line. He also caught flitting glimpses of the Tennessee, and of the steamers loaded with troops still crossing, and he heard the boom of the heavy cannon on the gunboats which still, at regular and short intervals, sent huge shells curving into the forest toward the camp of the Southern army. He also saw near him Warner and Pennington sound asleep on the ground, and then he sank back into his own lethargic slumber.
 
He was awakened by the call of a trumpet, and, as he rose, he saw the whole regiment or rather, what was left of it, rising with him. It was not yet dawn, and a light rain was falling, but smoldering fires disclosed the ground for some distance, and also the river on which the gunboats and transports were now gathered in a fleet.
 
Colonel Winchester beckoned to him.
 
“All right this morning, Dick?” h............