Despite the terrible repulse of the morning most of the men had regained their usual spirits.  Several were playing accordions, and the others were listening.  The Winchesters were known as a happy regiment, because they had an able colonel, strong but firm, efficient and tactful minor officers.  They seldom got into mischief, and always they pooled their resources.

One lad was reading now to a group from a tattered copy of “Les Miserables,” which had just reached them.  He was deep in Waterloo and Dick heard their comments.

“You wait till the big writers begin to tell about Chickamauga and Gettysburg and Shiloh,” said one.  “They’ll class with Waterloo or ahead of it, and the French and English never fought any such campaign as that when Grant came down through the Wilderness.  What’s that about the French riding into the sunken road?  I’m willin’ to bet it was nothing but a skirmish beside Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg.”

“And both failed,” said Warner.  “There are always brave men on every side in any war.  I don’t know whether Napoleon was right or wrong—­ I suppose he was wrong at that time—­but it always makes me feel sad to read of Waterloo.”

“Just as a lot of our own people were grieved at the death of Stonewall Jackson, although next to Lee he was our most dangerous foe,” said Pennington.

The reader resumed, and, although he was interrupted from time to time by question or comment, his monotone was pleasant and soothing, and Dick fell asleep.  When he awoke his nerves were restored, and he could think of the crater without becoming faint again.

That night Colonel Hertford of the cavalry came to their camp and talked with Colonel Winchester in the presence of Dick and his comrades of the staff.  The disastrous failure of the morning, so the cavalryman said, had convinced all the generals that Lee’s trenches could not be forced, and the commander-in-chief was turning his eye elsewhere.  While the deadlock before Petersburg lasted he would push the operations in some other field.  He was watching especially the Valley of Virginia, where Early, after his daring raid upon the outskirts of Washington, was being pursued by Sheridan, though not hard enough in the opinion of General Grant.

“It’s almost decided that help will be sent to Sheridan,” said Hertford, “and in that event my regiment is sure to go.  Yours has served as a mounted regiment, and I think I have influence enough to see that it is sent again as cavalry, if you wish.”

Colonel Winchester accepted the offer gladly, and his young officers, in all eagerness, seconded him.  They were tiring of inactivity, and of the cramped and painful life in the trenches.  To be on horseback again, riding over hills and across valleys, seemed almost Heaven to them, and, as Colonel Hertford walked away, earnest injunctions to use his influence to the utmost followed him.

“It will take the sight of the crater from my mind,” said Warner.  “That’s one reason why I want to go.”