Now, as they closed in the Northern guns increased their fire. It seemed to Dick that they could have blown away the whole plateau of Vicksburg by this time. The storm of shells raked the town, and he was glad that the people had been able to dig caves for refuge. Colonel Woodville must be doing some of his greatest swearing now. Dick thought of him with sympathy and friendliness.
“I don’t think it can last much longer, Mr. Mason,” said Sergeant Daniel Whitley on the morning of the second of July. “Their guns don’t answer ours often and it means that they’re out of ammunition, or almost. Besides, you can stand shells and bullets easier than lack of food. ‘Pears to me I can nearly feel ’em crumpling up before us.”
Trumpets blew the next morning. All the firing ceased suddenly and the three lads saw a Southern general with several officers of lower rank, riding forward under a white flag. It was Bowen, who came out to meet Grant.
Dick drew a deep, long breath. He knew that this was the end. So did his comrades. A cheer started and swept part of the way along the lines, but the officers quickly stopped it.
“Vicksburg is ours,” said Dick.
“Looks like it,” said Warner.
But Grant told Bowen that he would treat only with Pemberton, and after delays General Pemberton came out. General Grant went forward to meet him. The two stood alone under a tree within seventy yards of the Confederate lines and talked.
Chance or fortune presented a startling coincidence. Almost at the very moment that Grant and Pemberton met under the tree Pickett’s men were rising to their feet and preparing for the immortal but fatal charge at Gettysburg. While the cannon had ceased suddenly at Vicksburg they were thundering from many score mouths at Gettysburg. Fortune was launching two thunderbolts upon the Confederacy at the same moment. They were to strike upon fields a thousand miles apart, and the double blow was to be mortal.
But Dick knew nothing of Gettysburg then, nor was he to know anything until days afterward. He certainly had no thought of the East while he watched the two generals under the tree. Dick’s comrades were with him, but so intense was their curiosity that none of them spoke. Thousands of men were gazing with the same eagerness, and the Southern earthworks were covered with the defenders.
It was one of the most dramatic scenes in Dick’s life, the two men under the tree, and the tens of thousands who watched. Nobody moved. It seemed that they scarcely breathed. After the continuous roar of firing the sudden silence was oppressive, and Dick felt the blood pounding in his ears.
The heat was close and heavy. Black clouds were floating up in the west, and lightning glimmered now and then on the horizon. Although the storm threatened no one noticed. All eyes were still for Grant and Pemberton. After a while each returned to his own command, and there was an armistice until the next day, when the full surrender was made, and Grant and his officers rode into Vicksburg. At the same time Lee was gathering his men for the retreat into the South from the stricken field of Gettysburg. It was the Fourth of July, the eighty-seventh anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and no one could have possibly conceived a more striking celebration.
As soon as Dick was free for a little space he hurried to the ravine, and, as before, found there the open door. He passed in without hesitation.
The light as of old filtered into the room, and Colonel Woodville lay just as before in bed with his great bald head upon the pillow. Miss Woodville sat beside the bed, reading aloud from Addison. Dick’s step was light, but the colonel heard him and held up a finger. The lad paused until Miss Woodville, finishing a long sentence, closed the book. Then the colonel, raising a little the great white thatch of his eyebrows, said:
“Young sir, you have returned again, and, personally, you are welcome, but I do not conceive how you can stand the company you keep. My daughter informs me that the Yankees are in Vicksburg, and I have no reason to doubt the statement.”