The dust and heat were insupportable.  Whenever the march came near water, all thought of discipline was forgotten, and the panting, miner-like hosts broke for the inviting stream.  The officers were powerless to enforce discipline; when these breaks happened the column was forced to come to a halt until every man had filled his canteen—­and here is one, among the many trivial causes, that brought about the reverses of McDowell’s masterly campaign.  A march that ought to have been made in twenty-four hours, or thirty at the utmost, took more than three days!  One of those days saved to the army would have enabled McDowell to finish Beauregard before the ten thousand re-enforcements from the Shenandoah came upon his flank at Bull Run.  But we shall see that in proper time, for there is nothing more dramatically timely, or untimely, than this incident in the history of battles, unless it be Bluecher’s miraculous appearance at Waterloo, when Napoleon supposed that Grouchy was pummeling him twenty miles away.

There was no provost guard to spur on the stragglers; and when, late in the afternoon, the way-worn columns spread themselves on the western slope of the hamlet of Centreville, at least a third of each regiment was far in the rear.  Nearly every man had, in the heat and burden of the march, thrown away the provisions in his haversack, and that night ten thousand men lay down supperless on the grateful greensward, happy to rest and sleep.  Mother Earth must have ministered to the weary flesh, for at sunrise, when the music of the bugles aroused them, they started up with the alert vivacity of old campaigners.  Provisions, that should have been with the column the night before, arrived in the morning.  While the reinvigorated ranks were at coffee, there was a great clatter in the rear, and presently a cortege of mounted officers appeared, General McDowell among them.  Dick Perley, who was at the brigade headquarters, with Grandison, came to the Caribees presently with great news.

The battle was to begin that very day.  General Tyler was to go forward to a river called Bull Run, where Beauregard was waiting.  The whole army was to spread out like a fan and fight him.  He had seen the map on the table, and the place couldn’t be more than four miles away.  Yes, they all looked eagerly to the westward now.  The mountains in the distance rolled themselves down into lower and lower ridges, and just about four miles ahead could be seen a range that seemed to melt into a wide plateau fringed deeply with scrub-oak and clusters of pine.  Jack had provided himself with a field-glass.  Standing in the middle of the Warrenton pike, a fine highway, that ran downward as solid as a Roman causeway, for four or five miles, he could see the break made by the Bull Run River, and—­yes, by the glaive of battle!—­he could see the glistening of bayonets now and then, where the screen of woods grew thinner.