swamp on
the right. And presently they came in sight of the shapeless ironclads
with their funnels belching smoke, a most remarkable spectacle. How
Porter had pushed them there was one of the miracles of the war.

Then followed one of a thousand memorable incidents in the life of a
memorable man. General Sherman, jumping on the bare back of a scrawny
horse, cantered through the fields. And the bluejackets, at sight of that
familiar figure, roared out a cheer that might have shaken the drops from
the wet boughs. The Admiral and the General stood together on the deck,
their hands clasped. And the Colonel astutely remarked, as he rode up in
answer to a summons, that if Porter was the only man whose daring could
have pushed a fleet to that position, Sherman was certainly the only man
who could have got him out of it.

"Colonel," said the General, "that move was well executed, sir. Admiral,
did the Rebs put a bullet through your rum casks? We're just a little
tired. And now," he added, wheeling on the Colonel when each had a glass
in his hand, "who was in command of that company on the right, in the
swamp? He handled them like a regular."

"He's a second lieutenant, General, in the Sixth Missouri. Captain
wounded at Hindman, and first lieutenant fell out down below. His name is
Brice, I believe."

"I thought so," said the General.

Some few days afterward, when the troops were slopping around again at
Young's Point, opposite Vicksburg, a gentleman arrived on a boat from St.
Louis. He paused on the levee to survey with concern and astonishment the
flood of waters behind it, and then asked an officer the way to General
Sherman's headquarters. The officer, who was greatly impressed by the
gentleman's looks, led him at once to a trestle bridge which spanned the
distance from the levee bank over the flood to a house up to its first
floor in the backwaters. The orderly saluted.

"Who shall I say, sir?"

The officer looked inquiringly at the gentleman, who gave his name.

The officer could not repress a smile at the next thing that happened.
Out hurried the General himself, with both hands outstretched.

"Bless my soul!" he cried, "if it isn't Brinsmade. Come right in, come
right in and take dinner. The boys will be glad to see you. I'll send and
tell Grant you're here. Brinsmade, if it wasn't for you and your friends
on the Western Sanitary Commission, we'd all have been dead of fever and
bad food long ago." The General