It was a long train of many coaches, as the regiment numbered seven hundred men, and it also carried with it four guns, mounted on trucks.  The coaches were all of primitive pattern.  The soldiers were to sleep on the seats, and their arms and supplies were heaped in the aisles.  It was a cold, drizzling day of closing autumn, and the capital looked sodden and gloomy.  Cameron, the Secretary of War, came to see them off and to make the customary prediction concerning their valor and victory to come.  But he was a cold man, and he was repellent to Dick, used to more warmth of temperament.

Then, with a ringing of bells, a heave of the engine, a great puffing of smoke, and a mighty rattling of wheels, the train drew out of Washington and made its noisy way toward Baltimore.  Dick and Warner were on the same seat.  It was only forty miles to Baltimore, but their slow train would be perhaps three hours in arriving.  So they had ample opportunity to see the country, which they examined with the curious eyes of youth.  But there was little to see.  The last leaves were falling from the trees under the early winter rain.  Bare boughs and brown grass went past their windows and the fields were deserted.  The landscape looked chill and sullen.

Warner was less depressed than Dick.  He had an even temperament based solidly upon mathematical calculations.  He knew that while it might be raining today, the chances were several to one against its raining tomorrow.

“I’ve good cause to remember Baltimore,” he said.  “I was with the New England troops when they had the fight there on the way down to the capital.  Although we hold it, it’s really a Southern city, Dick.  Most all the border cities are Southern in sympathy, and they’re swarming with people who will send to the Southern leaders news of every movement we make.  I state, and moreover I assert it in the face of all the world, that the knowledge of our departure from Washington is already in Southern hands.  By close mathematical calculation the chances are at least ninety-five per cent in favor of my statement.”

“Very likely,” said Dick, “and we’ll have that sort of thing to face all the time when we invade the South.  We’ve got to win this war, George, by hard fighting, and then more hard fighting, and then more and more of the same.”

“Guess you’re right.  Arithmetic shows at least one hundred per cent of probability in favor of your suggestion.”

Dick looked up and down the long coach packed with young troops.  Besides the commissioned officers and the sergeants, there was not one in the coach who was twenty-five.  Most of them were nineteen or twenty, and it was the same in the other coaches.  After the first depression their spirits rose.  The temper of youth showed strongly.  They were eager to see Baltimore, but the train stopped there only a few minutes, and they were not allowed to leave the coaches.