"I am very much obliged to him; but I don't ask any for myself, and I hope you will not grant it. If any favors are bestowed upon me, I prefer to earn them myself." "Good!" exclaimed the general. "But I assure you and Senator Guilford that no man in this division of the army will get a position he does not deserve. I assure you, Lieutenant Somers, I should have thrown the Senator's letter among the waste paper, if I had not known you before. I remember you at Williamsburg; and you did a pretty thing in the wheat-field yesterday. You are just the man I want." "Thank you, sir; I should be very glad to prove that your good opinion is well founded." Apart from others, and in a low tone, the general gave his orders to Lieutenant Somers to undertake a very difficult and dangerous scouting expedition. "Before sundown you will be a prisoner in Richmond, or a first lieutenant," added the general as Somers withdrew. CHAPTER IX LIEUTENANT SOMERS CHANGES HIS NAME AND CHARACTER Like the major-generals in the army, Lieutenant Somers had strong aspirations in the direction of an independent command. Like those distinguished worthies, no doubt, he felt competent to perform bigger things than he had yet been called to achieve in the ordinary routine of duty. He had the blood of heroes in his veins; and, in spite of all he could do to keep his thoughts within the limits of modesty, he found them soaring to the regions of the improbable and fanciful. His imagination led him a wild race, and pictured him in the act of performing marvelous deeds of valor and skill. Fancy is a blind and reckless leader; and it gave our hero oftentimes a command which his reason would not have permitted him to accept. What boys, and even what men, think, when stimulated by ambition, would be too ridiculous to put upon paper. If their thoughts could be disclosed to the impertinent eye of the world, the proprietors would blushingly disown and disclaim them. Still, almost every live man and boy gives the reins to his fancy; and in the Army of the Potomac, we will venture to say, there were a hundred thousand privates and officers who permitted themselves to dream that they were brigadiers and major-generals; that they did big things, and received the grateful homage of the world. At any rate, Lieutenant Somers did, modest as he was, even while he felt that he was utterly incompetent to perform the duties incumbent on the two stars or the one star.