Dick on that momentous morning did not appreciate the full magnitude of the event about to occur, nor did he until long afterward. He knew it was of high importance, and yet it might have ranked as one of the decisive battles of history. There were no such numbers as at Shiloh and Chancellorsville, but the results were infinitely greater.
 
Nor was it likely that such thoughts would float through the head of a lad who had ridden far, and who at dawn was looking for an enemy.
 
The scouts had already brought word that the Southerners were in strong force, and that they occupied Champion Hill, the crest of which was bare, but with sides dark with forests and thickets. They were riding at present through forests themselves, and they felt that their ignorance of the country might take them at any moment into an ambush.
 
“We know what army we're going against, don't we?” asked Pennington.
 
“Why, Pemberton's, of course,” replied Dick.
 
“I'm glad of that. I'd rather fight him than Joe Johnston.”
 
“They've been trying to unite, but we hear they haven't succeeded.”
 
Pemberton, in truth, had been suffering from the most painful doubt. Having failed to do what Johnston had expected of him, he had got himself into a more dangerous position than ever. Then, after listening to a divided council of his generals, he had undertaken a movement which brought him within striking distance of Grant, while Johnston was yet too far away to help him.
 
Dick did not know how much fortune was favoring the daring that morning, but he and his comrades were sanguine. They felt all the time the strong hand over them. Like the soldiers, they had acquired the utmost confidence in Grant. He might make mistakes, but he would not doubt and hesitate and draw back. Where he led the enemy could not win anything without having to fight hard for it.
 
The early summer dawn had deepened, bright and hot, and the sun was now clear of the trees, turning the green of the forests to gold. Coffee and warm food were served to them during a momentary stop among the trees, and then the Winchester regiment moved forward again toward Champion Hill.
 
Rifle shots were now heard ahead of them. They were scattered, but the lads knew that the hostile skirmishers had come in contact. Presently the reports increased and through the woods they saw puffs of smoke. Trumpets to right and left were calling up the brigades.
 
“Open up for the guns!” cried an aide, and a battery lumbered through, the men swearing at their panting horses. But the Southern cannon were already at work. From the bare crest of Champion Hill they were sending shells which crashed in the ranks of the advancing foe. Two or three of the Winchesters were hit, and a wounded horse, losing its rider, ran screaming through the wood.
 
The forest and thickets now grew so dense that the officers dismounted, giving their horses to an orderly, and led on foot. The country before them was most difficult. Besides the trees and brush it was seared with ravines. A swarm of skirmishers in front whom they could not see now poured bullets among them, and the shells, curving over the heads of the ambushed sharpshooters, fell in the union ranks. On either flank the battle opened and swelled rapidly.
 
“We may have got Pemberton trapped,” said Pennington, “but he's got so many bristles that we can't reach in a hand and pull out our captive. My God, Dick, are you killed?”
 
He was pulling Dick to his feet and examining him anxiously.
 
“I'm all right,” said Dick in a moment. “It was the wind of a big round shot that knocked me down. Just now I'm thanking God it was the wind and not the shot.”
 
“I wish we could get through these thickets!” exclaimed Warner. “Our comrades must be engaged much more heavily than we are. What an uproar!”
 
The combat swelled to great proportions. The Southern army, being compelled to fight, fought now with all its might. The crest of the long hill blazed with fire. The men in gray used every advantage of position. Cannon and rifles raked the woods and thickets, and at many points the union attack was driven back. The sun rose slowly and they still held the hill, fighting with all the fire and valor characteristic of the South. They were cheered at times by the expectation of victory, but the stubborn Grant brought up his remaining forces and continually pressed the battle.
 
The Winchester regiment crossed a ravine and knelt among the thickets. Its losses had not yet been heavy, as most of the cannon fire was passing over their heads. Grape and canister were whistling among the woods, and Dick was devoutly grateful that these deadly missiles were going so high. Yet if they did not hurt they made one shiver, and it was not worth while to recall that when he heard the sound the shot had passed already. One shivered anyhow.
 
As well as Dick could judge from the volume of sound the battle seemed to be concentrated directly upon the hill. He knew that Grant expected to make a general attack in full force, and he surmised that one of the commanders under him was not pushing forward with the expected zeal. His surmise was correct. A general with fifteen thousand men was standing almost passive in front of a much smaller force, but other generals were showing great fire and energy.
 
The Winchester regiment contained many excellent riflemen and they were so close now that they could use the weapons for which the Kentuckians were famous. Firing deliberately, they began to cut gaps in the first ranks of the defenders on the slope. Then they rose and with other regiments pushed forward again.
 
But they came to a road in the side of the hill defended powerfully by infantry and artillery, and a heavy fire, killing and wounding many, was poured upon them. They sought to cross the road and attack the defenders with the bayonet, but they were driven back and their losses were so heavy that they were compelled to take cover in the nearest thickets.
 
The men, gasping with heat and exhaustion, threw themselves down, a sleet of shells and bullets passing over their heads. Dick had a sense of failure, but it lasted only a moment or two. From both left and right came the fierce crash of battle, and he knew that, if they had been driven back before the road, their comrades were maintaining the combat elsewhere.
 
“It's merely a delay. We pause to make a stronger attack,” said Colonel Winchester, as if he were apologizing to himself. “Are you all right, Dick?”
 
“Unhurt, sir, and so are Warner and Pennington, who are lying here beside me.”
 
“Unhurt, but uneasy,” said Warner. “I don't like the way twigs and leaves are raining down on me. It shows that if they were to depress their fire they would be shearing limbs off of us instead of boughs off the trees.”
 
The sun was high and brilliant now, but it could not dispel the clouds of smoke gathering in the thickets. It floated everywhere, and Dick felt it stinging his mouth and throat. Murmurs began to run along the lines. They did not like being held there. They wanted to charge again. They were still confident of victory.
 
Dick was sent toward another part of the army for orders, and he saw that all along the hill the battle was raging fiercely. But Grant could not yet hear the roar of guns which should indicate the advance of McClernand and his fifteen thousand. The silent leader was filled with anger, but he reserved the expression of it for a later time.
 
Dick saw the fiery and impetuous Logan, noticeable for his long coal-black hair, lead a headlong and successful charge, which carried the union troops higher up the hill. But another general was driven back, losing cannon, although he retook them in a second and desperate charge. Still no news from McClernand and his fifteen thousand! There was silence where his guns ought to have been thundering, and Grant burned with silent anger.
 
It was noon, and a half-hour past. The union plans, made with so much care and judgment, and the movements begun with so much skill and daring seemed to be going awry. Yet Grant with the tenacity, rather than lightning intuition, that made him a great general, held on. His lieutenants clung to their ground and prepared anew for attack.
 
Dick hurried back to his own regiment, which was still lying in the thickets, bearing an order for its advance in full strength. Colonel Winchester, who was standing erect, walking among his men and encouraging them, received it with joy. Word was speedily passed to all that the time to win or lose had come. Above the cannon and rifles the music of the calling trumpets sounded. The fire of both sides suddenly doubled and tripled in volume.
 
“Now, boys,” shouted Colonel Winchester, waving his sword, “up the hill and beat 'em!”
 
Uttering a deep-throated roar the Winchesters rushed forward, firing as they charged. Dick was carried on the top wave of enthusiasm. He discharged his pistol into the bank of fire and smoke in front of them and shouted incessantly. He heard the bullets and every form of missile from the cannon whining all about them. Leaves and twigs fell upon him. Many men went down under the deadly fire, but the rush of the regiment was not checked for an instant.
 
They passed out of the thicket, swept across the road, and drove the defenders up the hill. Along the whole line the union army, fired with the prospect of success, rushed to the attack. Grant threw every man possible into the charge.
 
The Southern army was borne back by the weight of its enemy. All of the front lines were driven in and the divisions were cut apart. There was lack of coordination among the generals, who were often unable to communicate with one another, and Pemberton gave the order to retreat. The battle was lost to the South, and with it the chance to crush Grant between two forces.
 
The union army uttered a great shout of victory, and Grant urged forward the pursuit. Bowen, one of the South's bravest generals, was the last to give way. The Winchester regiment was a part of the force that followed him, both fighting hard. Dick found himself with his comrades, wading a creek, and they plunged into the woods and thickets which blazed with the fire of South and North. A Confederate general was killed here, but the brave Bowen still kept his division in order, and made the pursuit pay a heavy cost for all its gain.
 
Dick saw besides the Confederate column many irregulars in the woods, skilled sharpshooters, who began to sting them on the flank and bring down many a good soldier. He caught a glimpse of a man who was urging on the riflemen and who seemed to be their leader. He recognized Slade, and, without a moment's hesitation, fired at him with his pistol. But the man was unhurt and Slade's return bullet clipped a lock of Dick's hair.
 
Then they lost each other in the smoke and turmoil of the battle, and, despite the energy of the pursuit by the union leaders, they could not break up the command of Bowen. The valiant Southerner not only made good his retreat, but broke down behind him the bridge over a deep river, thus saving for a time the fragments of Pemberton's army.
 
The Winchester regiment marched back to the battlefield, and Dick saw that the victory had been overwhelming. Nearly a third of the Southern army had been lost and thirty cannon were the trophies of Grant. Yet the fighting had been desperate. The dead and wounded were so numerous that the veteran soldiers who had been at Shiloh and Stone River called it “The Hill of Death.”
 
Dick saw Grant walking over the field and he wondered what his feelings were. Although its full result was beyond him he knew, nevertheless, that Champion Hill was a great victory. At one stroke of his sword Grant had cut apart the circle of his foes.
 
Dick came back from the pursuit with Colonel Winchester. He had lost sight of Warner and Pennington in the turmoil, but he believed that they would reappear unhurt. They had passed through so many battles now that it did not occur to him that any of the three would be killed. They might be wounded, of course, as they had been already, but fate would play them no such scurvy trick as to slay them.
 
“What will be the next step, Colonel?” asked Dick, as they stood together upon the victorious hill.
 
“Depends upon what Johnston and Pemberton do. Pemberton, I'm sure, will retreat to Vicksburg, but Johnston, if he can prevent it, won't let his army be shut up there. Still, they may not be able to communicate, and if they should Pemberton may disobey the far abler Johnston and stay in Vicksburg anyhow. At any rate, I think we're sure to march at once on Vicksburg.”
 
A figure approaching in the dusk greeted Dick with a shout of delight. Another just behind repeated the shout with equal fervor. Warner and Pennington had come, unharmed as he had expected, and they were exultant over the victory.
 
“Come over here,” said Warner to Dick. “Sergeant Whitley has cooked a glorious supper and we're waiting for you.”
 
Dick joined them eagerly, and the sergeant received them with his benevolent smile. They were commissioned officers, and he gave them all the respect due to rank, but in his mind they were only his boys, whom he must watch and protect.
 
While the fires sprang up about them and they ate and talked of the victory, Washington was knowing its darkest moments. Lee had already been marching thirteen days toward Gettysburg, and he seemed unbeatable. Grant, who had won for the North about all the real success of which it could yet boast, was lost somewhere in the Southern wilderness. The messages seeking him ran to the end of the telegraph wires and no answer came back. The click of the key could not reach him. Many a spirit, bold at most times, despaired of the union.
 
But the old and hackneyed saying about the darkest hour just before the dawn was never more true. The flame of success was already lighted in the far South, and Lincoln was soon to receive the message, telling him that Grant had not disappeared in the wilderness for nothing. Thereafter he was to trust the silent and tenacious general through everything.
 
They were up and away at dawn. Dick was glad enough to leave the hill, on which many of the dead yet lay unburied, and he was eager for the new field of conflict, which he was sure would be before Vicksburg. Warner and Pennington were as sanguine as he. Grant was now inspiring in them the confidence that Lee and Jackson inspired in their young officers.
 
“How big is this city of Vicksburg?” asked Pennington.
 
“Not big at all,” replied Warner. “There are no big cities in the South except New............