Finally, at five o’clock, the train began its journey. It could go no faster than ten miles an hour because of the broken axle boxes and so it limped north, its wheels clanking across the rail joints and its bell clanging a mournful sound over the water meadows and green fields. The Colonel was still furious at the day’s delays, but the men were in high spirits and sang cheerfully as their slow train chugged away from the hills, its smoke drifting among trees. They left the convoy of wagons, guns and cavalry behind and steamed slowly into the night.

The train journey took almost two days. The crowded cars spent twelve hours waiting at the Gordonsville Junction, another three at Warrenton, and endless other minutes waiting while the tender was fueled with cordwood or its water tank charged, but at last, on a hot Saturday afternoon, they reached Manassas Junction where the Army of Northern Virginia had its headquarters. No one in Manassas knew the Legion was coming or what to do with them, but finally a staff officer led the Legion north and east from the small town along a country road that wound through small steep hills. There were other troops camped in meadows, and artillery pieces parked in farm gates, and the sight of those other troops gave the Legion an apprehensive feeling that they had joined some massive undertaking that none of them truly understood. Till now they had been the Faulconer Legion, safe in Faulconer Court House and led by Colonel Faulconer, but the train had abruptly brought them to a strange place where they were lost in an incomprehensible and uncontrollable process.

It was almost dark when the staff Captain pointed to a farmhouse that lay to the right of the road on a wide, bare plateau. “The farm’s still occupied,” he told Faulconer, “but those pastures look empty, so make yourselves at home.”

“I need to see Beauregard.” Faulconer sounded irritable, made so by the evening’s uncertainty. He wanted to know where exactly he was, and the staff officer did not know, and he wanted to know precisely what was expected of his Legion, but the staff officer could not tell him that either. There were no maps, no orders, no sense of direction at all. “I should see Beauregard tonight,” Faulconer insisted.

“I guess the general will be real pleased to see you, Colonel,” the staff officer said tactfully, “but I reckon you’d best still wait for morning now. Say at six o’clock?”

“Are we expecting action?” Faulconer asked pompously.