“It looked very much like a severe thunderstorm,” writes the captain, “and I knew the men would all have to sleep out of doors, unless we carried them. So I took six poles, and went to the colonel, and told him I had got the poles for two tents, which would cover twenty-four men, and unless he ordered me not to carry them, I should do so. He said he had no objection, only thought they would be too much for me. We only had about twelve men [the rest of the company being, perhaps, on picket or other duty], and some of them have their heavy knapsacks and guns to carry, so could not carry any poles. We started and marched two miles without stopping to rest, not having had anything to eat, and being very hot and dry.” At this time Captain Prescott was daily threatened with sickness, and suffered the more from this heat. “I told Lieutenant Bowers, this morning, that I could afford to be sick from bringing the tent-poles, for it saved the whole regiment from sleeping outdoors; for they would not have thought of it, if I had not taken mine. The major had tried to discourage me;—said, ‘perhaps, if I carried them over, some other company would get them;’—I told him, perhaps he did not think I was smart.” He had the satisfaction to see the whole regiment enjoying the protection of these tents.[189] In the disastrous battle of Bull Run this company behaved well, and the regimental officers believed, what is now the general conviction of the country, that the misfortunes of the day were not so much owing to the fault of the troops as to the insufficiency of the combinations by the general officers. It happened, also, that the Fifth Massachusetts was almost unofficered. The colonel was, early in the day, disabled by a casualty; the lieutenant-colonel, the major and the adjutant were already transferred to new regiments, and their places were not yet filled. The three months of the enlistment expired a few days after the battle.