With one impulse all the men—­that is, all who had been alert enough to provide pen and paper—­bestowed themselves about the candles allotted each group, and began letters “home,” dated magniloquently “Headquarters in the Field.  Tyler’s Division, Sherman’s Brigade, 16th July, 1861.”  The imperial impulse manifested itself in these curt epistles.  I can’t resist giving Jack’s: 

“Dear Mother:  How I wish you and Polly could see us now!  We are really on the march at last.  The battle can’t be far off.  We are not many miles from the enemy, and, if he stands, what glorious news you will hear very soon!  I wish you could have seen us to-day.  Colonel Sherman, who is the sternest looking man I ever saw, a regular army officer, once a professor, told the major—­you know McGoyle is commanding us now—­he is a brick—­Sherman told him that the Caribees did as good marching as the regulars, who came behind us.  Dear old Mick, with his brogue and his blarney, has won every heart in the regiment, and you may be sure we shall see the whites of the enemy’s eyes under him, which we never should have done under that odious Hessian, Oswald—­in hospital now, thank Heaven—­though some time, when I tell you the story, you will see that in this, as in most other things, Heaven helps those who help themselves.  Taps will sound in five minutes, and I can only add that I am in good health, glorious spirits, and unshaken confidence that we shall return to Acredale before your longing to see your son overcomes your love of glory.  We shall return victors, if not heroes—­at least I know that you and Polly will believe this of your affectionate and dutiful son

“JACK.”

Barney read one or two phrases of his composition to the indulgent ear of Jack and the poet, over which they laughed a good deal.  “We are,” he said, “before the enemy.  I feel as our great ancestor, Baron Moore, felt at Fontenoy when the Sassenachs were over against the French lines—­as if all the blood in Munster was in my veins and I wanted to spill it on the villains ferninst us.”

The poet declined to quote from his epistle, and the three friends sat in the dim light until midnight, wondering over what the morrow had in store.  Dick Perley listened in awe to Jack’s wonderful ratiocinations on what was to come—­secretly believing him much more learned in war than this General McDowell who was commanding the army.  The first bugle sounded at three in the morning in the Caribees’ camp, and when the coffee had been hastily dispatched, the men began to understand the cause of their being shunted into the field so early the evening before while the rear of the column marched ahead of them.  The Caribees passed a mile or more of encampments, the men not yet aroused, and when at daylight the whole body was in motion they were in advance, with nothing before them but a few hundred cavalry.