“I don’t know. Across the river to somewhere I believe. Come on!” and off Harry ran, with Louis at his heels. The parade ground was filled with men, on foot and on horseback, scurrying in all directions. From their captain the youths soon learned that the Union army, or a portion of it, was to take possession of the other shore of the river. The various commands had been divided into three parts and the Goreville Volunteers were to be attached to the Ellsworth Zouaves and some other companies, bound by boat for Alexandria. In less than two hours all was ready for embarkation. The trip down the stream to one of the main docks in Alexandria did not take long. Company after company came ashore unmolested, although mutterings could be heard on every side. Having landed all of his troops, Colonel Ellsworth marched up the main street, called upon the city authorities to surrender the town, and then started for the telegraph office, with the intention of cutting off all communications with the South--certainly a very clever movement. The Goreville Volunteers soon found themselves not far from the telegraph office for which Colonel Ellsworth was bound. They had become detached from the main body of the soldiers and now, without warning, were surrounded by a mob of two hundred people, armed with pistols, clubs, and stones. “Down with the Yankees! Down with the Northern mud-sills!” was the cry, and in a moment the air became thick with flying stones and lumps of dirt. Captain Paulding at once halted his men in two lines, and gave the rear line the order to “about face.” Next came the order to take aim, but by this time the mob saw that the soldiers “meant business,” and it melted away as quickly as it had gathered. “A bloodless victory,” said Harry, who stood next to Louis. Louis smiled and then he nodded his head in the direction where Jerry Rowe stood. Poor Jerry was shaking so that he could scarcely hold his gun. “He’ll collapse when he gets into a regular battle,” said Harry, and then the command came for silence in the ranks and nothing further was said. A little later the command marched past the Marshall House, one of the leading hotels of Alexandria. From the top waved a Confederate flag--a flag which President Lincoln and others had often seen from a window in the White House. “That flag ought to come down,” whispered Louis. He had scarcely spoken when down the street came Colonel Ellsworth, accompanied by only two or three of his command. Ellsworth had noted the flag and now he ran into the hotel to tear it down with his own hands. “Whose flag is that?” he demanded of the first man he met. “I don’t know,” was the surly reply. “I want it lowered at once.” “Do you? All right, go take it down yourself.”