These four Congressmen played a curiously dramatic part before they got back to Washington. So did a party of Senators with whom they joined forces. This other party, at the start, also numbered four. They had planned a jolly picnic--this day that was to prove them right in hurrying the government into battle!--and being wise men who knew how to take time by the forelock, they had taken their luncheon with them. From what is known of Washington and Senators, then as now, one may risk a good deal that the luncheon was worth while. Part of the tragedy of that day was the accidental break-up of this party with the result amid the confusion of a road crowded by pleasure-seekers, that two Senators went one way carrying off the luncheon, while the other two, making the best of the disaster, continued southward through those beautiful early hours when Russell was admiring the scenery, their luncheon all to seek. The lucky men with the luncheon were the Senators Benjamin Wade and Zachary Chandler. Senator Trumbull and Senator Grimes, both on horseback, were left to their own devices. However, fortune was with them. Several hours later they had succeeded in getting food by the wayside and were resting in a grove of trees some distance beyond the village of Centerville. Suddenly, they suffered an appalling surprise; happening to look up, they beheld emerging out of the distance, a stampede of men and horses which came thundering down the country road, not a hundred yards from where they sat. "We immediately mounted our horses," as Trumbull wrote to his wife the next day, "and galloped to the road, by which time it was crowded, hundreds being in advance on the way to Centerville and two guns of Sherman's battery having already passed in full retreat. We kept on with the crowd, not knowing what else to do. We fed our horses at Centerville and left there at six o'clock.... Came on to Fairfax Court House where we got supper and, leaving there at ten o'clock reached home at half past two this morning. . . . I am dreadfully disappointed and mortified."(1) Meanwhile, what of those other gay picnickers, Senator Wade and Senator Chandler? They drove in a carriage. Viewing the obligations of the hour much as did C. C. Clay at the President's reception, they were armed. Wade had "his famous rifle" which he had brought with him to Congress, which at times in the fury of debate he had threatened to use, which had become a byword. These Senators seem to have ventured nearer to the front than did Trumbull and Grimes, and were a little later in the retreat At a "choke-up," still on the far side of Centerville, their carriage passed the carriage of the four Congressmen--who, by the way, were also armed, having among them "four of the largest navy revolvers."