Oh, I tell you, you fellows from the New England and the other
Northern States don't appreciate the sacrifices that we of the border
states make for the Union. Up there you are safe from invasion.
Your houses are not on the battlefields. You are all on one side.
You don't have to fight against your own kind, the people you hold most
dear. And when the war is over, whether we win or lose, you'll go back
to unravaged regions."
"You wrong me there, Dick. I have thought of it. It's the people of
the border, whether North or South, who pay the biggest price. We risk
our lives, but you risk your lives also, and everything else, too."
Dick wrapped himself in a heavy blanket, pillowed his head on a log
before one of the fires and dozed a while. His nerves had been tried
too hard to permit of easy sleep. He awoke now and then and over a wide
area saw the sinking fires and the moving forms of men. He felt that a
sense of uneasiness pervaded the officers. He knew that many of them
considered their forces inadequate for the siege of a fortress defended
by a large army, but he felt with the sincerity of conviction also,
that Grant would never withdraw.
He heard from Colonel Winchester about midnight in one of his wakeful
intervals that General Grant was going down the river to see Commodore
Foote. The brave leader of the fleet had been wounded severely in the
last fight with the fort, and the general wished to confer with him
about the plan of operations.
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