line was pell-mell among them.

"Surrender!" Jack shouted to the squad just ahead of him--"surrender, or
we'll blow your heads off!" and along the line for some distance to his
left and right he could hear his own exultant demand echoed. There was
nothing to do for the rebels, who had neglected to keep their enemies at
the proper distance, but throw up their hands. Jack's squad sent back
twenty-three prisoners to Major Mike, who took them in proud triumph to
General Tyler, riding with the head of the column, now that the tenacity
of the rebel skirmishers made it seem probable that there would be
serious work. But though the firing kept up as the Union forces
advanced, no obstacle more, serious than the thin lines of the
skirmishers revealed itself.

At dusk the bugles, moving with the captains in the rear, sounded the
rally, and then the scattered groups came together in company. They were
to bivouac on the spot to await their regiment when it arrived.
Meanwhile, to the bitter discontent of the Caribee companies, their post
of honor was taken by new troops, and they knew that next day they would
march in line. They had so enjoyed the glory of the first volleys, the
first deaths, and the first prisoners, that, not remembering military
procedure, they resented the change as an aspersion upon their valor.

When the regiment came up, however, they forgot their mortification in
the eager questioning and envious jocularities of the rest. Companies K
and H were so beset that they forgot to boil their coffee, and would
have gone thirsty to their dewy beds, if the other companies' cooks had
not shared their rations with the gossiping heroes. As darkness fell,
the sky was reddened for miles with pillars of fire, and for a time the
Caribees thought it was the enemy. But Tom Twigg, who had been with the
major at headquarters, explained to Jack that the army was divided into
three bodies of about ten thousand men each, and that Tyler's column, of
which the Caribees were the advance, were the extreme northern body;
that they were now at Vienna, far north of Manassas, where Schenck had
been beset a month before in his never-enough-ridiculed reconnaissance
by train; that in the morning they were to push on to Fairfax
Court-House and thence to Centreville, where the army was to come
together for the blow at the rebels. Jack and his friends were a good
deal chagrined to learn that they were not as near the enemy as the
column to the so