“But it was an awful day,” said Warner, “and there’s a lot of gloom in the camp. Still, we’re not moving away and the reinforcements are coming.”
Dick explained to Colonel Winchester why he had failed in his mission, and the colonel promised to report in turn to the commander that the hand of God had intervened. Dick’s conscience was now at rest, and he resumed at once his duties with the regiment.
Many days passed. While Grant did not make any other attack upon Vicksburg his circle of steel grew tighter, and the rain of shells and bombs upon the devoted town never ceased. Reinforcements poured forward. His army rose to nearly eighty thousand men, and Johnston, hovering near, gathering together what men he could, did not dare to strike. Dick was reminded more than once of Caesar’s famous siege of Alesia, about which he had read not so long ago in Dr. Russell’s academy at Pendleton.
There were long, long days of intrenching, skirmishing and idleness. May turned into June, and still the steel coil enclosed Vicksburg. Here the Union men were hopeful, but the news from the East was bad. Not much filtered through, and none of it struck a happy note. Lee, with his invincible legions, was still sweeping northward. Doubtless the Confederate hosts now trod the soil of a free State, and Dick and his comrades feared in their very souls that Lee was marching to another great victory.
“I wish I could hear from Harry Kenton,” said Dick to Warner. “I’d like to know whether he passed through Chancellorsville safely.”
“Don’t you worry about him,” said Warner. “That rebel cousin of yours has luck. He also has skill. Let x equal luck and y skill. Now x plus y equals the combination of luck and skill, which is safety. That proves to me mathematically that he is unharmed and that he is riding northward- to defeat, I hope.”
“We’ve got to win here,” said Dick. “If we don’t, I’m thinking the cause of the Union will be more than doubtful. We don’t seem to have the generals in the East that we have in the West. Our leaders hang on here and they don’t overestimate the enemy.”
“That’s so,” said Pennington. “Now, I wonder what ‘Pap’ Thomas is doing.”
“He’s somewhere in Tennessee, I suppose, watching Bragg,” said Dick. “That’s a man I like, and, I think, after this affair here is over, we may go back to his command. If we do succeed in taking Vicksburg, it seems likely to me that the heavy fighting will be up there in Tennessee, where Bragg’s army is.”
“Do you know if your uncle, Colonel Kenton, is in Vicksburg?”
“I don’t think so. In fact, I’m sure he isn’t. His regiment is with Bragg. Well, George, what does your algebra tell us?”
Warner had taken out his little volume again and was studying it intently. But he raised his head long enough to reply.
“I have just achieved the solution of a very important mathematical problem,” he answered in precise tones. “An army of about thirty-five thousand men occupies a town located on a river. It is besieged by another army of about seventy-five thousand men flushed with victory. The besiegers occupy the river with a strong fleet. They are also led by a general who has shown skill and extraordinary tenacity, while the commander of the besieged has not shown much of either quality and must feel great discouragement.”
“But you’re only stating the side of the besieged.”
“Don’t interrupt. It’s impolite. I mean to be thoroughly fair. Now come the factors favoring the besieged. The assailing army, despite its superior numbers, is far in the enemy’s country. It may be attacked at any time by another army outside, small, but led by a very able general. Now, you have both sides presented to you, but I have already arrived at the determining factor. What would you say it is, Dick?”
“I don’t know.”
“You haven’t used your reasoning powers. Remember that the man who not merely thinks, but who thinks hard and continuously always wins. It’s very simple. The answer is in four letters, f-o-o-d, food. As we know positively, Pemberton was able to provision Vicksburg for five or six weeks. We can’t break in and he can’t break out. When his food is exhausted, as it soon will be, he’ll have to give up. The siege of Vicksburg is over. I know everything, except the exact date.”