The Rock of Chickamauga: A Story of the Western Crisis. Altsheler Joseph Alexander

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      The question of landing was worrying Grant at that time and worrying him terribly. The water spread far out over the sunken lands and he might have to drop down the river many miles before he could find a landing on solid ground, a fact which would scatter his army along a long line, and expose it to defeat by the Southern land forces. But his anxieties were relieved early in the morning when a colored man taken aboard from a canoe told him of a bayou not five miles below Grand Gulf up which his gunboats and transports could go and find a landing for the troops on solid ground.

      Dick was asleep when the boats entered the bayou, but he was soon awakened by the noise of landing. It was then that most of the Winchester and of the Ohio regiment discovered that they were comrades, thrown together again by the chances of war, and there was a mighty welcome and shaking of hands. But it did not interfere with the rapidity of the landing. The Winchester regiment was promptly ordered forward and, advancing on solid ground, took a little village without firing a shot.

      All that day troops came up and Grant’s army, after having gone away from Grand Gulf in darkness, was coming back to it in daylight.

      “They say that Pemberton at Vicksburg could gather together fifty thousand men and strike us, while we’ve only twenty thousand here,” said Pennington.

      “But he isn’t going to do it,” said Warner. “How do I know? No, I’m not a prophet nor the son of a prophet. There’s nothing mysterious about it. This man Grant who leads us knows the value of time. He makes up his mind fast and he acts fast. The Confederate commander doesn’t do either. So Grant is bound to win. Let z equal resolution and y equal speed and we have z plus y which equals resolution and speed, that is victory.”

      “I hope it will work out that way,” said Dick, “but war isn’t altogether mathematics.”

      “Not altogether, but that beautiful study plays a great part in every campaign. People are apt to abuse mathematics, when they don’t know what they’re talking about. The science of mathematics is the very basis of music, divine melody, heaven’s harmony.”

      “You needn’t tell me,” said Pennington, “that a plus b and z minus y lie at the basis of ‘Home, Sweet Home’ and the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’ I accept a lot of your tales because you come from an old state like Vermont, but there’s a limit, George.”

      Warner looked at him pityingly.

      “Frank,” he said, “I’m not arguing with you. I’m telling you. Haven’t you known me long enough to accept whatever I say as a fact, and to accept it at once and without question? Not to do so is an insult to me and to the truth. Now say over slowly with me: ‘The basis of music is mathematics.’”

      They said slowly together:

      “The basis of music is mathematics.”

      “Now I accept your apologies,” said Warner loftily.

      Pennington laughed.

      “You’re a queer fellow, George,” he said. “When this war is over and I receive my general’s uniform I’m coming up into the Vermont mountains and look your people over. Will it be safe?”

      “Of course, if you learn to read and write by then, and don’t come wearing your buffalo robe. We’re strong on education and manners.”

      “Why, George,” said Pennington in the same light tone, “I could read when I was two years old, and, as for writing, I wrote a lot of text-books for the Vermont schools before I came to the war.”

      “Shut up, you two,” said Dick. “Don’t you know that this is a war and not a talking match?”

      “It’s not a war just now, or at least there are a few moments between battles,” retorted Warner, “and the best way I can use them is in instructing our ignorant young friend from Nebraska.”