And a band came roaring by,--with its crashing brass and rumbling drums,--and then after the band had turned the corner, came Iowa in gray blouses and such other garments as the clothes-lines of the country afforded.

They were singing as they passed--a song the boy had never heard, being all about the "happy land of Canaan." And before the sun had set again, after that night, hundreds of those who sang of the happy land were there.

In the rear were the ambulances and the ammunition and the hospital vans, and the wagon which held the boys wheeled into the line.

After they had passed, the streets were clogged with carts and drays and wagons of all sorts, for the citizens were moving to places of safety.
As a man, the boy's memory did not tell him how the boys fared, but he does remember that it was dark in the timber where they camped that night, and that they slipped away into the woods to lie down together.
The chirping of the birds at dawn wakened them, and as John sat up rubbing his eyes, he heard a rifle's crack.

They were at the edge of a field, and half a mile from him, troops were marching by columns across a clearing.