But meantime the batteries have "gone into park," unhitched and unharnessed back of the Virginia farm-house just beyond the bend. The Zouaves have trailed off into an open field between them and the tents of the New-Yorkers. Staff-officers have conducted the commanders to the designated spots for their bivouac. Two other regiments of the new volunteers have followed, marching somewhat wearily past the now thoroughly roused camps of the militia, and as the sun sinks to the west and heavy knapsacks are unslung and arms stacked in the fields and sentry-posts established, everybody begins to realize among the tents of the earlier comers that a move to the front is in contemplation, just when they were counting on a homeward move to the rear. And now as the tattoo drums are bracing up, a score of officers are gathered about the tents of the New York colonel, chatting over the probabilities. With them are two of the New England officers, one a grave, taciturn captain who has listened for half an hour without a word. By several officers the idea has been advanced that if a forward move is intended in response to the "on to Richmond" cry of the press, many of the men will demur. They were called into service in mid-April; it is now mid-July. Many of them are clerks who will lose their positions, married men who have made no provision for their families, staid citizens who from sense of duty sprang to the front at the first summons, so as to help hold the fort until the nation could organize its army of volunteers. Of regulars at the time there were less than ten thousand, scattered from Maine to Oregon, from Mackinaw to the Gulf of Mexico. Now the first levies of the volunteers were pouring in. Here already in front of Washington were regiments from New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio, even far away Wisconsin. Why should the government require of the State militia, rallied at the capital solely to defend, that it should march away southward to attack an enemy in position? Similar views were being expressed in other militia camps, said the speaker, and the colonel looked worried. At last he turned to the stalwart, silent captain from the regiment over the way. "What do your people say, Captain Stark?" he asks. "Nothing," is the answer, as the tall, bearded man puffs meditatively at the brier-root pipe, his head resting on his hand, his elbow on his knee. "Well, you were mustered in about the same date we were. Don't some of your boys talk of going home, and wanting to?" "Not--audibly," says Stark. "Well, they must be thinking a lot. They are fixed pretty much as ours are," hazards a field-officer. "Possibly," says Stark, tapping out the ashes on the leg of the camp-stool. "But we made no stipulation as to the duty to be required of us. We tendered our services and expect to take our chances." "Do you mean your boys would all go, no matter how far south they were ordered?" asks a young officer who has already had much to say about his own.