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Rebel positions. But they could not. They were caught in a heavy cross fire and pinned down. Tyler called for his entire command, just over a brigade strong, to come up.
    Tyler had no way of knowing that General Beauregard had more than half his army facing his one brigade.
    â€œPull back, you damn fool,” Jamie muttered. “You’re throwing good men out to be slaughtered.”
    â€œThat’s what it’s all about, Major,” Sparks said, standing a few feet away. “One side slaughters the other.”
    Jamie could not argue that.
    Dupree called, “Them facin’ us is showin’ a white flag, Major. I reckon they want to get their wounded.”
    â€œLet them. I’ve done the same with Indians and with Santa Anna’s men at the Alamo.”
    The colonel commanding the Massachusetts waved his men out to collect the wounded. The dead would lie where they fell. After a few minutes, both sides started once more banging away at each other.
    Tyler ordered another line set up facing Jamie and his men, but Tyler’s only option was to place them on the crest of a hill. After a few minutes of deadly fire from the Marauder snipers, they were withdrawn.
    â€œIf this is the best showin’ their officers can do,” Corporal Bates remarked, “we just might win this war.” But it was said without a lot of conviction. Bates had traveled the North and East with his father, a railroad engineer. He knew full well the might of the Yankees.
    In a desperate move, General Tyler placed men from the Twelfth New York, the First Massachusetts, and the Second and Third Michigan stretched out along a line facing the Rebels. But they could not advance. After less than a half hour of fierce fighting, Tyler ordered his men to withdraw.
    The weakest point of the miles-long line was at Blackburn’s Ford, but that was due to the terrain and not the resolve of the Southerners under the command of Longstreet.
    Now General Tyler was faced with some tough decisions. He had no way of knowing that Jamie’s Marauders were only two companies strong without a single cannon to back them. Had he taken a chance, he might have broken through and begun a flanking movement. But he did not. He elected to pull back the Twelfth New York and send them directly at Longstreet’s men. But Beauregard had sent Early’s brigade to beef up Longstreet and went there himself with his men. He and Longstreet stood up behind their troops, sabers in hand, the sight of them braving the bullets only adding to the courage of their men.
    After only twenty minutes, the Twelfth New York began to retreat, and it was not an orderly withdrawal . . . it was a rout. That retreat left other Union troops under Tyler’s command wide open, and Longstreet sent men from his Virginia command charging across the stream. The Union line broke, and the troops began running toward the rear. Longstreet did not pursue—a decision that was questioned for some time by other Confederate officers; instead he ordered his Rebels back and to resume their positions south of the creek.
    The battle for Blackburn’s Ford was over, with the Rebels clearly victorious.
    McDowell arrived on the scene, clearly irritated, and took Tyler into a hastily erected tent and posted a guard and closed the flap. It was not known exactly what McDowell said to Tyler, but congratulations certainly were not in order.
    For the next several days, all was mostly quiet along the long lines. Jamie and his men held their positions in the woods and rested, wrote letters home, and talked among themselves.
    The men of the Marauders were gradually adopting a battle dress, and Jamie did not object. While Jamie wore a black shirt and gray trousers, the men were now nearly all wearing gray shirts and black trousers. All now wore the yellow bandanna around their throats and the standard Confederate cavalryman’s hat. Dupree’s wife had gathered together several