ten o'clock
The morning was divinely cool , the men in high spirits , Piedmont and the railway were but six miles down the road . The First Brigade covered the distance by eight o'clock . There was the station , there was the old Manassas Gap railroad , there was the train of freight and cattle cars -- ever so many freight and cattle cars ! Company after company the men piled in ; by ten o'clock every car was filled , and the platforms and roofs had their quota . The crazy old engine blew its whistle , the First Brigade was off for Manassas . Bee , Bartow , and Elzey , arriving at Piedmont in the course of the morning , were not so fortunate . The railroad had promised , barring unheard-of accident , to place the four brigades in Manassas by sunrise of the twentieth .