And with them always was
the wise Sergeant Whitley, to whom, although inferior in rank, they
turned often and willingly for guidance and advice.
"It's an awful situation," said Pennington; "I knew that war would
furnish horrors, but I didn't expect anything like this."
"But General Grant will never retreat," said Dick. "I feel it in every
bone of me. I've seen his face tonight."
"No, he won't," said the experienced sergeant, "because he's making
every preparation to stay. An' remember, Mr. Pennington, that while
this is pretty bad, worse can happen. Remember, too, that while we can
stand this, we can also stand whatever worse may come. It's goin' to
be a fight to a finish."
Far in the night the occasional guns from the Southern fortress ceased.
The snow was falling no longer, but it lay very deep on the ground,
and the cold was at its height. Along a line of miles the fires burned
and the men crowded about them. But Dick, who had been working on the
snowy plain that was the battlefield, and who had heard many moans there,
now heard none. All who lay in that space were sleeping the common
sleep of death, their bodies frozen stiff and hard under the snow.
Dick, sitting by one of the fires, saw the cold dawn come, and in those
chill hours of nervous exhaustion he lost hope for a moment or two.
How could anybody, no matter how resolute, maintain a siege without
ammunition and without food. But he spoke cheerfully to Pennington and
Warner, who had slept a little and who were just awakening.
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