When the news flashed across the length and breadth of the great continent that at last a Northern army was to attack the South, the question on everybody’s lips was “How will the American fight?” McDowell, in his army of 30,000, had but 800 regulars--the rest were volunteers who had never been trained to war. Raw, inexperienced, undisciplined, gathered from the four corners of the continent: rugged bushmen from the backwoods of Michigan, rough and restless men, hunters born and bred every one, marching side by side with workers from the Pennsylvania mines and New York factory hands; carters from Philadelphia and Chicago, farmers from Ohio and Illinois, clerks from Buffalo and Boston, all untried and untrained, having volunteered for what the most of them looked upon as a jaunt and picnic in the South, with, maybe, a little shooting by the way--all trudged merrily along under the sweltering July sun, joking and playing pranks as they turned their faces to the South, and paying but small heed to their officers’ attempts to keep them in order. McDowell, writing of this march to Bull Run, tells many strange things. He says that the advance was rendered tediously slow by the “fooling” of the men on the march. “They stopped every moment to pick blackberries or to get water; they would not keep in rank, order as much as you pleased; when they came where water was fresh, they would pour the old water out of their canteens, and fill them with fresh water. They were not used to denying themselves much; they were not used to journeys on foot.” Before the long war was ended the troops became very used indeed to denying themselves much, and to weary journeys on foot.