Regiment after regiment wheeled into line and breasted the long slope, the rear being brought up by the returning heroes of the forest fight. Only the first half of the force was sent ahead at the double. The rest of the demi-corps, baggage and big guns with them, moved at a more sedate pace. It was needful only to assure the capture of the crest and that it should be held until the entire force could come up. If there seems something comic-operalike in the idea of a Federal force marching rapidly to battle against a foe whose numbers were unknown and whose vanguard was unseen--a foe whose full description a dozen scouts had not given hours earlier--the reader is respectfully, but very sadly, referred to War Department records of no less than nine similar occurrences in the Virginia campaigns of 1862 and 1863. Dad (his long years of supposedly aimless reading of military tactics, during such evenings as the Eagle bar had not called him, bearing sudden and glorious fruit) knew the glow that can be equaled by none other the world has to offer--the inspiration of seeing a mighty mass of fellow men moving and acting on the sole impulse of his own brain. He grew young again. As he rode close to the general’s bridle rein, briefly mapping out the future movements of the detachment, he felt that failure and he had forever bidden each other adieu. Then-- A scurrying figure that scuttled up to the general, ducking under his very bridle rein. “Hey, general!” shouted Jimmie full fiercely. “They sent me back. There’s going to be fun up there ahead by and by. I smell it. I can _always_ smell it in advance. And that’s where I and my drum belong. Give me a chance at those Rebs, won’t you? Oh, _please_!” There was a chuckle from a hundred throats as the shrill plea went up. The general glanced inquiringly at Dad, in whose company Jimmie had arrived on the scene. “He is my grandson, sir,” explained Dad. “Though what he is doing here is beyond all my guessing. I left him back at Ideala, Ohio, a year and more ago. I never heard of him or from him again till to-day. I’d written often, but the letters were never answered. I see now they never were received. The boy’s silence worried me. But not half as much as his presence in this inferno does just at this particular time.” “Can I please go to the front, gen’ral?” pleaded the boy. His voice had swelled to a whine. But it was the frantic whine of the leashed hunting-dog when it sees the pack afield. The general turned to Dad. “He is your grandson, Captain Dadd,” said he. “Use your own judgment about giving him the permission he wants. I have enough to answer for this day without sending a little boy to probable death.” “Little boy?” scoffed Jimmie, outraged to the paladin soul. “_Little_ boy, hey? With a regiment of such ‘little’ boys you could storm Vicksburg. And with a brigade of us you could have Richmond for the asking.