promptly
sent Custer in search of him. The young cavalryman quickly found him and
scattered or captured the entire band.

Early escaped from the fight with a lone orderly as his comrade, and
the next day the general who had lost all through no fault of his own,
rode into Richmond with his single companion, and from him Jefferson
Davis, President of the Confederacy, heard the full tale of Southern
disaster in the Valley of Virginia.

Meanwhile Sheridan and his victorious army rode on to a place called
White House, where they found plenty of stores, and where they halted for
a long rest, and also to secure new mounts, if they could. Their horses
were worn out completely by the great campaign and were wholly unfit for
further service. But it was hard to obtain fresh ones and the delay was
longer than the general had intended. Nevertheless his troops profited
by it. They had not realized until they stopped how near they too had
come to utter exhaustion, and for several days they were in a kind of
physical torpor while their strength came back gradually.

"I think I've removed the last trace of the Virginia mud from my clothes
and myself," said Warner on the morning of the second day, "but I've had
to work hard to do it, as time seemed to have made it almost a part of my
being."

"I've spent most of my time learning to walk again, and getting the bows
out of my legs," said Dick. "I've been a-horse so long that I felt like
a sailor coming ashore from a three years' cruise."

"Agreed with me pretty well, all except the mud, since I was born on
horseback," said Pennington. "But I don't like to ride in a brown
plaster suit of armor. What do you think is ahead, boys?"

"Junction with General Grant," said Dick. "They say, also, that General
Sherman, after completing his great work in Georgia and North Carolina,
is coming to join them too. It will be a great meeting, that of the
three successful generals who have destroyed the Confederacy, because
there's nothing of it left now but Lee's army, and that they say is
mighty small."

It was in reality a triumphant march that they began after they left
White House, refreshed, remounted and ready for new conquests. They
soon came into touch with the Army of the Potomac, and the great meeting
between Grant, Sherman and Sheridan took place, Sherman having come north
especially for the purpose. Then Sheridan's force became attached to the
Army of the Potomac, and his ca