As we have already seen, the two divisions of the band spent the night of Wednesday, September 6th, in neighboring villages, within easy reach of their next day’s destination. Early on the morning of Thursday, the 7th, they took up their march along the roads converging upon Northfield, meeting in the woods west of the town. In the course of the forenoon, some of them appeared upon the streets and in the stores, where two of them were recognized as the same two that had made the previous visit of inspection already referred to. They all wore linen dusters, a garment much more common with the traveler in those days than in our own, and one that seemed entirely suitable for the sultry weather then prevailing, while it served to conceal the pistols and cartridge-belts, with which the robbers were so liberally supplied. Five of the men dined together at a restaurant on the west side of the river, waiting contentedly for their dinner to be cooked, conversing with the proprietor on politics and other indifferent subjects, and, after they had finished their meal, still delaying unaccountably, probably to give time for the arrival of the rest of their accomplices. Finally they remounted their horses and rode over the bridge. It is difficult, and, so far as the present writer is concerned, impossible, after the most painstaking study of all available sources of information, to determine the exact order of events at the opening of the attack. No one observer followed all the preliminary movement of the robbers. One person noticed one thing and another another; and each depended more or less upon hearsay for items not within his personal knowledge. The similarity of dress already referred to made it difficult to distinguish the robbers from one another; while the wild excitement which soon ensued gave little opportunity for careful observation. With no attempt to reconcile conflicting statements, therefore, which happily differ only in unimportant details, this narrative will confine itself to those facts upon which all witnesses agree.