It will raise the prestige of our cavalry, which needs it.
I believe it was you, Lieutenant Mason, who brought Grierson." "It was chiefly, sir, a sergeant named Whitley.

I rode with him and outranked him, but he is a veteran of the plains, and it was he who did the real work." The general's stern features were lightened by a smile.
"I'm glad you give the sergeant credit," he said.

"Not many officers would do it." He listened a while longer and then the three were permitted to withdraw to their regiment, which was posted back of Grand Gulf, and which had quickly become a part of an army flushed with victory and eager for further action.
Before sunset Dick, Warner, and Pennington looked at Grand Gulf, a little village standing on high cliffs overlooking the Mississippi, just below the point where the dark stream known as the Big Black River empties into the Father of Waters.

Around the crown of the heights was a ring of batteries and lower down, enclosing the town, was another ring.
Far off on the Mississippi the three saw puffing black smoke marking the presence of a Union fleet, which never for one instant in the whole course of the war relaxed its grip of steel upon the Confederacy.

Dick's heart thrilled at the sight of the brave ships.