IV. A SOLDIER OF THE UNION…

IV. A SOLDIER OF THE UNION

And there was mounting in hot haste—the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car Went pouring forward with impetuous speed And swiftly forming in the ranks of war!—Byron.

Honor to the West Point soldier! War is his business, and, wicked though wars be, the warrior shall still receive his honor due. By his devotion to rugged discipline, the professional soldier preserves war as a science, so that armies may not be rabbles, but organizations. He divests himself of the full freedom of a citizen, and puts himself under orders for all time.

One of our ablest leaders in the Civil War was General George H. Thomas. Of Thomas we learn, from an address of Garfield, that “in the army he never leaped a grade, either in rank or command. He did not command a company until after long service as a lieutenant. He commanded a regiment only at the end of many years of company and garrison duty. He did not command a brigade until after he had commanded his regiment three years on the Indian frontier. He did not command a division until after he had mustered in, organized, disciplined, and commanded a brigade. He did not command a corps until he had led his division in battle, and through many hundred miles of hostile country. He did not command the army until, in battle, at the head of his corps, he had saved it from ruin.” This is apprenticeship with all its hardships, but with all its benefits.

In our popular praises of the wonders performed by the great armies of citizens which sprang up in a few days, let it never be forgotten that the regular army, with its discipline, was the “little leaven” which spread its martial virtues through the entire forces; that the West Point soldier was the man whose skill organized these grand armies, and made it possible for them to gain their victories.

Honor to the volunteer soldier! He is history’s greatest hero. What kind of apprenticeship for war has he served? To learn this, let us go back to the peaceful time of 1860, when the grim-visaged monster’s “wrinkled front” was yet smooth. Now, look through the great ironworking district of Pennsylvania, with its miles of red-mouthed furnaces, its thousand kinds of manufactures, and its ten thousands of skilled workmen. Number the civil engineers; count the miners; go into the various places where crude metals and other materials are worked up into every shape known, to meet the necessities of the modern arts. These are the sources of military power. Here are the men who will build bridges, and equip railroads for army transportation, almost in the twinkling of an eye. Cast your mind’s eye back into all the corners of the land, obscure or conspicuous, and in every place you shall see soldiers being trained. They are not yet in line, and it does not look like a military array; the farmer at his plow, the scholar and the professional man at the desk, are all getting ready to be soldiers. No nation is better prepared for war than one which has been at peace; for war is a consumer of arts, of life, of physical resources. And we had a reserve of those very things accumulating, as we still have all the time.

Europe, with its standing armies, stores gunpowder in guarded magazines. America has the secret of gunpowder, and uses the saltpeter and other elements for civil purposes; believing that there is more explosive power in knowing how to make an ounce of powder than there is in the actual ownership of a thousand tons of the very stuff itself. The Federal army had not gone through years of discipline in camp, but it was no motley crowd. Its units were not machines; they were better than machines; they were men.

James A. Garfield became a volunteer, a citizen soldier. The manner of his going into the army was as strikingly characteristic of him as any act of his life. In a letter written from Cleveland, on June 14, 1861, to his life-long friend, B. A. Hinsdale, he said:

“The Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the Twenty-fourth Regiment has been tendered to me, and the Governor urges me to accept. I am greatly perplexed on the question of duty. I shall decide by Monday next.”

But he did not then go. For such a man, capable of so many things, duty had many calls, in so many different directions, that he could not easily decide. How Garfield was affected by the temptation to go at once may be seen in a letter of July 12, 1861, written from Hiram, to Hinsdale, wherein he says: “I hardly knew myself, till the trial came, how much of a struggle it would cost me to give up going into the army. I found I had so fully interested myself in the war that I hardly felt it possible for me not to be a part of the movement. But there were so many who could fill the office tendered to me, and would covet the place, more than could do my work here, perhaps, that I could not but feel it would be to some extent a reckless disregard of the good of others to accept. If there had been a scarcity of volunteers I should have accepted. The time may yet come when I shall feel it right and necessary to go; but I thought, on the whole, that time had not yet come.”

But the time was at hand. Garfield had become known and appreciated, and he was wanted. On July 27, Governor Dennison wrote to him: “I am organizing some new regiments. Can you take a lieutenant-colonelcy? I am anxious you should do so. Reply by telegraph.” Garfield was not at home when this letter was sent, but found it waiting for him on his return, August 7. That night was passed in solemn thought and prayer; face to face with his country’s call, this man began to realize as he had not before done, what “going to war” meant. He began to consider the sacrifice which must be made, and found that in his case there was more to give up than with most men. How many thousands of volunteers have thought the same! Garfield’s prospects in life were very fine in the line of work for which he had prepared himself. He was a fine scholar, and on the road to distinguished success. Moreover, he had a dearly loved wife and a little child, his soul’s idol. Who would provide for them after the war if he should fall victim to a Southern bullet? He had only three thousand dollars to leave them. After all, willing as he was, it was no easy thing to do. So it took a night of hard study; a night of prayer, a night of Bible reading, a night of struggle with the awful call to arms; but when the morning dawned, a great crisis had passed, and a final decision had been made. The letter of Governor Dennison was answered that he would accept a lieutenant-colonelcy, provided the colonel of the regiment was a Wrest Point graduate. The condition was complied with already. On the 16th of August, Garfield reported for duty, and received his commission. His first order was to “report in person to Brigadier-General Hill, for such duty as he may assign to you in connection with a temporary command for purposes of instruction in camp-duty and discipline.” In pursuance of these instructions he went immediately to Hill’s head-quarters at Camp Chase, near Columbus. Here he staid during the next four months, studying the art of war; being absent only at short periods when in the recruiting service. In the business of raising troops he was very successful. The Forty-second O. V. I. was about to be organized, and Garfield raised the first company. It was in this wise: Late in August he returned to Hiram and announced that at a certain time he would speak on the subject of the war and its needs, especially of men. A full house greeted him at the appointed hour. He made an eloquent appeal, at the close of which a large enrollment took place, including sixty Hiram students. In a few days the company was full, and he took them to Camp Chase, where they were named Company A, and assigned to the right of the still unformed regiment. On September 5th, Garfield was made Colonel, and pushed forward the work, so that in November the requisite number was secured.

Meanwhile the work of study and discipline was carried on at Camp Chase with even more than Garfield’s customary zeal. The new Colonel was not an unwilling citizen in a soldier’s uniform. He had been transformed through and through into a military man. He himself shall tell the story:

“I have had a curious interest in watching the process in my own mind, by which the fabric of my life is being demolished and reconstructed, to meet the new condition of affairs. One by one my old plans and aims, modes of thought and feeling, are found to be inconsistent with present duty, and are set aside to give place to the new structure of military life. It is not without a regret, almost tearful at times, that I look upon the ruins. But if, as the result of the broken plans and shattered individual lives of thousands of American citizens, we can see on the ruins of our old national errors a new and enduring fabric arise, based on larger freedom and higher justice, it will be a small sacrifice indeed. For myself I am contented with such a prospect, and, regarding my life as given to the country, am only anxious to make as much of it as possible before the mortgage upon it is foreclosed.”

During the fall of 1861, Colonel Garfield had to perform three duties. First, to learn the tactics and study the books on military affairs; second, to initiate his officers into the like mysteries, and see that they became well informed; and, finally, to so discipline and drill the whole regiment that they would be ready at an early day to go to the front. In pursuance of these objects he devoted to their accomplishment his entire time. At night, when alone, he studied, probably even harder than he had ever done as a boy at Hiram. For there he had studied with a purpose in view, but remote; here the end was near, and knowledge was power in deed as well as word. Every-day recitations were held of the officers, and this college President in a few weeks graduated a well-trained military class. The Forty-second Regiment itself, thus well-officered, and composed of young men of intelligence, the very flower of the Western Reserve, was drilled several hours every day with the most careful attention. Every thing was done promptly, all things were in order, for the Colonel had his eye on each man, and the Colonel knew the equipments and condition of his regiment better than any other man. After all, great events generally have visibly adequate causes; and when we see Garfield’s men win a victory the first time they see the enemy, we shall not be surprised, for we can not think how it could be otherwise.

On December 15th an order came which indicated that the Forty-second was wanted in Kentucky. General Buell was Commander of the Department of the Ohio. His head-quarters were at Louisville. At nine o’clock on the evening of the 16th they reached Cincinnati. From this point, in compliance with new orders received, the regiment was sent on down the Ohio to Catlettsburg, where a few hundred Union troops were gathered already; and Garfield himself went to Louisville to learn the nature of the work he had before him. Arriving on the evening of the 16th, he reported to his superior at once.

Don Carlos Buell was at this time forty-three years of age; a man accomplished in military science and experienced in war. He had first learned the theory of his business at West Point, where he had graduated in 1842; and besides other service to his country he had distinguished himself in the war with Mexico. What a contrast to Garfield! The latter was only thirty years of age, and just five years out of college. The only knowledge he possessed to prepare him for carrying out the still unknown duty, had been gathered out of books; which, by the way, are not equal to West Point nor to a war for learning how to fight. Now what could be the enterprise in which the untried Forty-second should bear a part? And who is the old head, the battle-scarred hero, to lead the expedition? We shall see.

Taking a map of Kentucky, Buell briefly showed Garfield a problem, and told him to solve it. In a word, the question was, how shall the Confederate forces be chased out of Kentucky? The rebels badly needed Kentucky; so did the Union. Having shown Garfield what the business was, Buell told him to go to his quarters for the night, and at nine o’clock next morning be ready to submit his plan for a campaign. Garfield immediately shut himself up in a room, with no company but a map of Kentucky. The situation was as follows: Humphrey Marshall, with several thousand Confederate troops, was rapidly taking possession of eastern Kentucky. Entering from Virginia, through Pound Gap, he had quickly crossed Pike County into Floyd, where he had fortified himself, somewhere not far from Prestonburg, and was preparing to increase his force and advance farther. His present situation was at the head of the Big Sandy River. Catlettsburg, where the Forty-second had gone, is at the mouth of this river.

Also, on the southern border, an invasion from Tennessee was being made by a body of the Confederates, under Zollicoffer. These were advancing toward Mill Spring, and the intention was that Zollicoffer and Marshall should join their forces, and so increase the rebel influence in the State that secession would immediately follow. For Kentucky had refused to secede, and this invasion of her soil was a violation of that very cause of State’s Rights for which they were fighting.

Garfield studied this subject with tireless attention, and when day dawned he was also beginning to see daylight. At nine o’clock he reported. The plan he recommended was, in substance, that a regiment be left, first, some distance in the interior, say at Paris or Lexington, this mainly for effect on the people of that section. The next thing was to proceed up the Big Sandy River against Marshall, and run him back into Virginia; after which it would be in order to move westward, and, in conjunction with other forces, keep the State from falling into hostile hands. Meanwhile, Zollicoffer would have to be taken off by a separate expedition.

Buell stood beside his young Colonel and listened. He glanced at the outline of the proposed campaign and saw that it was wisely planned. As a result—for Buell did nothing hastily—Colonel Garfield was told that his instructions would be prepared soon, and he might call at six that evening. That evening he came, and learned the contents of Order No. 35, Army of the Ohio, which organized the Eighteenth Brigade, under the command of James A. Garfield, Colonel of the Forty-second O. V. I. The brigade itself was made up of the last-named regiment, the Fortieth O. V. I., Colonel J. Cranor; Fourteenth K. V. I., Colonel L. D. F. Moore; Twenty-second K. V. I., Colonel D. W. Landsay, and eight companies of cavalry.

Buell’s instructions were contained in the following letter:

“HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO, Louisville, Ky., Dec. 17, 1861.

“Sir: The brigade organized under your command is intended to operate against the rebel force threatening, and, indeed, actually committing depredations in Kentucky, through the valley of the Big Sandy. The actual force of the enemy, from the best information I can gather, does not probably exceed two thousand, or twenty-five hundred, though rumors place it as high as seven thousand. I can better ascertain the true state of the case when you get on the ground.

“You are apprised of the condition of the troops under your command. Go first to Lexington and Paris, and place the Fortieth Ohio Regiment in such a position as will best give a moral support to the people in the counties on the route to Prestonburg and Piketon, and oppose any further advance of the enemy on the route. Then proceed with the least possible delay to the mouth of the Sandy, and move with the force in that vicinity up that river and drive the enemy back or cut him off. Having done that, Piketon will probably be in the best position for you to occupy to guard against future incursions. Artillery will be of little, if any, service to you in that country. If the enemy have any it will incumber and weaken rather than strengthen them.

“Your supplies must mainly be taken up the river, and it ought to be done as soon as possible, while navigation is open. Purchase what you can in the country through which you operate. Send your requisitions to these head-quarters for funds and ordnance stores, and to the quartermasters and commissary at Cincinnati for other supplies.

“The conversation I have had with you will suggest more details than can be given here. Report frequently on all matters concerning your command. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

“D. C. BUELL, “Brigadier-General commanding.”

On receipt of these instructions, Garfield began instantly to carry them out. He telegraphed his forces at Catlettsburg to advance up the Big Sandy towards Paintville, Marshall’s advance post. This he did that no delay should be occasioned by his absence. He then visited Colonel Cranor’s regiment, and saw it well established at Paris. Returning thence, he proceeded to hasten after his own regiment, and reached Catlettsburg on the 20th of December. Here he stopped to forward supplies up the river to Louisa, an old half-decayed village of the Southern kind, where he learned that his men were waiting for him.

It was on this march from Catlettsburg to Louisa that the Forty-second Ohio began, for the first time, that process of seasoning which soon made veterans out of raw civilians. The hardships of that march were not such as an old soldier would think terrible; but for men who but five days before had left Columbus without any experience whatever, it was very rough. On the morning of the eighteenth the first division started, twenty-five mounted on horses, and one hundred going by boat. The cavalry got on very well; but the river was quite low, and after a few miles of bumping along, the old boat finally stuck fast. Leaving this wrecked concern, the men started to tramp it overland. The country was exceedingly wild; the paths narrow, leading up hill and down hill with monotonous regularity. That night when the tired fellows stopped to rest, they had advanced only eight miles. The next day, however, they reached Louisa, where the mounted company had taken possession and prepared to stay; meanwhile the remaining companies were on the road. Rain set in; the north wind blew, and soon it was very cold. The steep, rocky paths scarcely afforded room for the wagon-train, whose conveyances were lightened of their loads by throwing off many articles of comfort which these soldiers, with their unwarlike notions of life, hated to lose. But advance they must, if only with knapsacks and muskets; and on the twenty-first all were together again. About this time Garfield arrived.

Paintville, where it was intended to attack Marshall, is on Painter Creek, near the west fork of the Big Sandy, about thirty miles above Louisa. The first thing to be done, therefore, was to cross that intervening space, very quickly, and attack the enemy without delay. A slow campaign would result in disaster. While this advance was being made, it would also be necessary to see to the matter of reinforcements; for Marshall had thirty-five hundred, Garfield not half as many. The only possible chance would be to communicate an order to the Fortieth Ohio, under Colonel Cranor, at Paris, one hundred miles away; that hundred miles was accessible to Marshall, and full of rebel sympathizers. The man who carried a dispatch to Cranor from Garfield, would carry his life in his hand, with a liberal chance of losing it. To find such an one, both able and willing for the task, would be like stumbling over a diamond in an Illinois corn-field. In his perplexity, Garfield went to Colonel Moore, of the Fourteenth Kentucky, and said to him: “I must communicate with Cranor; some of your men know this section of country well; have you a man we can fully trust for such a duty?” The Colonel knew such a man, and promised to send him to head-quarters. Directly the man appeared. He was a native of that district, coming from the head of the Baine, a creek near Louisa, and his name was John Jordan. What kind of a man he was has been well told by a writer in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1865:

“He was a tall, gaunt, sallow man of about thirty, with small gray eyes, a fine falsetto voice, pitched in the minor key, and his speech was the rude dialect of the mountains. His face had as many expressions as could be found in a regiment, and he seemed a strange combination of cunning, simplicity, undaunted courage, and undoubting faith; yet, though he might pass for a simpleton, he had a rude sort of wisdom, which, cultivated, might have given his name to history.

“The young Colonel sounded him thoroughly, for the fate of the little army might depend on his fidelity. The man’s soul was as clear as crystal, and in ten minutes Garfield saw through it. His history is stereotyped in that region. Born among the hills, where the crops are stones, and sheep’s noses are sharpened before they can nibble the thin grass between them, his life had been one of the hardest toil and privation. He knew nothing but what Nature, the Bible, the Course of Time, and two or three of Shakespeare’s plays had taught him; but, somehow, in the mountain air he had grown up to be a man—a man, as civilized nations account manhood.

“‘Why did you come into the war?’ at last asked the Colonel.

“‘To do my sheer fur the kentry, Gin’ral,’ answered the man. ‘And I didn’t druv no barg’in wi’ th’ Lord. I guv him my life squar’ out; and ef he’s a mind ter tack it on this tramp, why, it’s a his’n; I’ve nothin’ ter say agin it.’

“‘You mean that you’ve come into the war not expecting to get out of it?’

“‘That’s so, Gin’ral.’

“‘Will you die rather than let the dispatch be taken?’

“‘I will.’

“The Colonel recalled what had passed in his own mind when poring over his mother’s Bible that night at his home in Ohio, and it decided him. ‘Very well,’ he said; ‘I will trust you.’”

Armed with a carbine and a brace of revolvers, Jordan mounted the swiftest horse in the regiment, and was off at midnight. The dispatch was written on tissue paper, then folded closely into a round shape, and coated with lead to resemble a bullet. The carrier rode till daylight, then hitched his horse in the timber, and went to a house where he knew he would be well received. The lord of that house was a soldier in Marshall’s little army, who served the Union there better than he could have done with a blue coat on. The lady of the house was loyal in a more open manner. Of course, the rebels knew of this mission, as they had spies in Garfield’s camp, and a squad of cavalry were on Jordan’s trail. They came up with him at this house; hastily giving the precious bullet to the woman, he made her swear to see that it reached its destination, and then broke out toward the woods. Two horsemen were guarding the door. To get the start of them, as the door opened, he brandished a red garment before the horses, which scared them so that they were, for a moment, unmanageable. In an instant he was over the fence. But the riders were gaining. Flash, went the scout’s revolver, and the one man was in eternity! Flash, again, and the other man’s horse fell! Before the rest of the squad could reach the spot, Jordan was safely out of their power. That night the woman who had sheltered him carried the dispatch, and a good meal, to a thicket near by, whither she was guided by the frequent hooting of an owl! And, after a ride of forty miles more, with several narrow escapes, the Colonel of the Forty-second at last read his orders from a crumpled piece of tissue paper. As for Jordan, he was back in Garfield’s tent again two weeks later; but the faithful animal that carried him had fallen, pierced by a rebel ball.

What, meanwhile, had been the progress of Garfield’s forces in their attempt to reach Paintville? On the morning of December 23d, the first day’s march began. The rains of the preceding days had been stopped by extreme cold, and the hills were icy and slippery. The night before this march very few of the men had slept; but, instead of that, had crouched around camp-fires to keep from freezing. During the day they only advanced ten miles. In half that distance, one crooked little creek, which wound around in a labyrinth of coils, was crossed no less than twenty-six times. This was slow progress, but the following days were slower still. Provisions were scarce. Most of the wagon-train and equipments had been loaded on boats to be taken up the river, and the supplies that had started with them were far in the rear. To meet their necessities, the men captured a farmer’s pigs and poultry without leave. But Garfield was no plunderer; he was a true soldier; and, after reprimanding the offenders, he repaid the farmer.

On the 27th, a squad of Marshall’s men were encountered, and two men captured. The next day the compliment was returned, and three Union soldiers became unwilling guests of the too hospitable South. Thus slowly advancing, in spite of bad weather and bad roads, skirmishing daily with the enemy, as the opposing forces neared each other, on the 6th day of January, 1862, the Eighteenth Brigade, except that portion which was coming from Paris, was encamped within seven miles of Paintville; and at last it had become possible to bring things to a crisis, and determine, by the solemn wager of battle, who was entitled to this portion of Kentucky.

Up to this time, Garfield had been moving almost in the dark. He did not know what had become of his message to Cranor; he did not know the exact position of his enemy; he did not know the number of the enemy. Now we shall see good fortune and good management remedy each of these weaknesses in a single day.

Harry Brown had been a canal hand with Garfield in 1847, and the latter, with his genial ways, had made Brown his friend. At this time, Brown was a kind of camp-follower, and not very well trusted by the officers. But he knew the region well where these operations were going on, and hearing that his old comrade was commander, he hastened to offer his services as a scout. Garfield accepted, told him what he wanted, and through him learned very accurately the situation of the Confederate forces. On the night of the sixth, Jordan also appeared on the scene, with the information that Cranor was only two days’ march behind. To crown all, a dispatch came from Buell, on the morning of the seventh, with a letter which had been intercepted. This letter was from Humphrey Marshall to his wife, and revealed the fact that his force was less than the country people, with their rebel sympathies, had represented. It was determined to advance that day and attack the enemy at Paintville, where about one-third of them were posted.

This attack on Paintville was a hazardous enterprise. In main strength, Marshall was so superior that Garfield’s only hope was in devising some plan to outwit him. From the point of starting, there were three accessible paths; one on the west, striking Painter Creek opposite the mouth of Jenny Creek, three miles to the right, from the place to be attacked; one on the east, approaching that point from the left; and a third road, the most difficult of the three, straight across. Rebel pickets were thrown out on each road. Marshall was prepared to be attacked on one road, but never dreamed of a simultaneous approach of the enemy on all at once; and it was this misapprehension which defeated him. First, a small detachment of infantry, supported by cavalry, attacked on the west, whereupon almost the entire rebel force was sent out to meet them. Shortly, a similar advance was made on the east, and the enemy retraced their steps for a defense in that direction. While they were thus held, the remaining Union force drove in the pickets of the central path, who, finding the village empty, rushed on three miles further, to a partially fortified place where Marshall himself was waiting. Thinking that Paintville was lost, he hastily ordered all his forces to retreat, which they did, as far as this fortified camp. Garfield entered Paintville at the same time, having with him the Forty-second Ohio, Fourteenth Kentucky, and four hundred Virginia cavalry.

A portion of the cavalry were chasing the rebel horse, whom they followed five miles, killing three and wounding several. The Union force lost two killed and one wounded. The next day, the eighth of January, a few hours rest was taken, while preparations were being made for another fight. But towards evening it was determined to advance. Painter Creek was too high to ford. But there was a saw-mill near by, and in an hour a raft was made upon which to cross. Marshall, being posted concerning this movement, was deliberating what to do, when a spy came in with the information that Colonel Cranor was approaching, with 3,300 men. Alarmed at such an overpowering enemy, he burnt his stores and fled precipitately toward Petersburg. At nine o’clock that night, the Eighteenth Brigade was snugly settled in the late Confederate camp. Here it appeared that every thing had been left suddenly, and in confusion; meat was left cooking before the fire, and all preparations for the evening meal abandoned. This place was at the top of a hill, three hundred feet high, covering about two acres, and would soon have been a strong fortification.

On the ninth, Colonel Cranor did at last arrive, with his regiment, eight hundred strong, completely worn out with the long march. But Colonel Garfield felt that the present advantage must be pursued, or no permanent gain could result. So he raised 1,100 men, who stepped from the ranks as volunteers, and immediately started on the trail of the enemy.

The action which followed is known as the battle of Middle Creek. Eighteen miles further up the West Fork, along which they marched, two parallel creeks flow in between the hills; the northernmost one is Abbott’s Creek, the next Middle Creek. It was evident that Marshall would place himself behind this double barrier and make a stand there, if he should endeavor to turn the tide of defeat at all. Toward this point the weary troops, therefore, turned their steps. The way was so rough and the rains so heavy that they did not near the place until late in the day. But about nine o’clock in the evening they climbed to the top of a hill, whose further slope led down into the valley of Abbott’s Creek. On this height the enemy’s pickets were encountered and driven in. Further investigation led to the conclusion that the enemy was near, in full force. That night the men slept on their arms in this exposed position; the rain had turned to sleet, and any degree of comfort was a thing they ceased to look for. Perceiving the necessity for reinforcements, Colonel Garfield sent word to Colonel Cranor to send forward all available men. Meanwhile, efforts were made to learn Marshall’s position, and arrange for battle. Our old friend John Jordan visited the hostile camp in the mealy clothes of a rebel miller, who had been captured, and returned with some very valuable information. Morning dawned, and the little Federal army proceeded cautiously down into the valley, then over the hills again, until, a mile beyond, they were ready to descend into the valley of Middle Creek, and charge against the enemy on the opposite heights. Garfield’s plan was to avoid a general engagement, until about the time for his reinforcements to appear, because otherwise it was plainly suicidal to attack such a large force. On this plan skirmishing continued from eight till one o’clock, the only result being a better knowledge of the situation. Now it was high time to begin in earnest. In the center of the strip of meadow-land, which stretched between Middle Creek and the opposite hills, was a high point of ground, crowned by a little log church and a small graveyard. The first movement would be to occupy that place, in order to have a base of operations on that side. The rebel cavalry and artillery were each in position to control the church. But the guns were badly trained, and missed their mark; the cavalry made some show, but, for some reason, retired without much fighting.

Keeping a reserve here, a portion of the brave eleven hundred were now to strike a decisive blow; but the enemy’s infantry was hidden, and they did not know just how to proceed. On the south side of Middle Creek, to the right of the place where the artillery was stationed, rose a high hill. Around it wound the creek, and following the creek ran a narrow, rocky road. The entire force of Marshall, except his reserve, was in fact hidden in the fastnesses of that irregular, forest-covered hill, and so placed as to command this road, by which it was expected that the Federal troops would approach. But “the best laid plans” sometimes go wrong. The Yankee was not to be entrapped. Suspecting some such situation, Garfield sent his escort of twelve men down the road; around the hill they clattered at a gallop, in full view of the enemy. The ruse worked well, and the sudden fire of several thousand muskets revealed the coveted secret. The riders returned safely, and then the battle began. Four hundred men of the Fortieth and Forty-second Ohio, under Major Pardee, quickly advanced up the hill in front, while two hundred of the Fourteenth Kentucky, under Lieutenant-Colonel Monroe, went down the road some distance and endeavored, by a flank movement, to so engage a portion of the rebels that not all of them could be turned against Pardee. The latter now charged up the hill under a heavy fire. They were inferior in numbers, but determined to reach the summit some way. So they broke ranks at the cry of “Every man to a tree,” and fought after the Indian fashion. After all, the Union boys were not altogether at a disadvantage. Their opponents were raw troops, and after the manner of inexperienced men they aimed too high, while the Federals did much better execution. But Marshall meant business at this important hour, and sent his reserve to swell the number. A charge was made down the hill. Now the boys in blue retreat; but not far. Garfield goes in with his reserves. Captain Williams calls, “To the trees again, my boys;” they rally; the fight grows hotter and whistling death is in the air. The critical moment is here, and those poor fellows down below are about to be crushed. The exultant Confederates rush down in swelling volume, the wolf is about to seize his prey.

But now a faint, though cheerful shout rings across the narrow valley; then louder it grows while the echoes clatter back from hillside to hillside like the tumult of ten thousand voices. The Confederates above peer out through the branches and view the opposite road. Every face, just flushed with hopes of victory, now turns pale at the sight. The force from Paintville has come at last. The hard-pressed men of Pardee can see nothing, but they catch new inspiration from the sound. They answer back; while to the thousand voices and the ten thousand echoes on the Union side, one word of reply is given from the rebel commander’s mouth. And the word he utters is—RETREAT.

This ended the struggle. Lieutenant-Colonel Sheldon, with his seven hundred men, after a hard day’s march of twenty miles, came down on the scene of action at a run, and found that their approach had saved the day. Garfield and his men were already occupying the hill-top, and a detachment was following the fleeing troops of the enemy. The policy adopted, however, was to not follow the enemy very far, as it was not known in how bad a condition they were. The Union loss in this battle was two killed and twenty-five wounded. The rebels left twenty-seven dead on the field, and had carried off about thirty-five more.

The captures were, twenty-five men, ten horses, and a quantity of army supplies. Toward midnight a bright light appeared in the sky in the direction Marshall had taken. It was the light of his blazing wagons and camp equipments, burned by his men to keep them from doing any body else any good, while they made their enforced visit to Virginia by way of Pound Gap. The field was won; and Buell’s commission to Garfield had been faithfully performed.

On the following day Colonel Garfield addressed his victorious men as follows:

“Soldiers of the Eighteenth Brigade: I am proud of you all! In four weeks you have marched, some eighty and some a hundred miles, over almost impassable roads. One night in four you have slept, often in the storm, with only a wintry sky above your heads. You have marched in the face of a foe of more than double your number—led on by chiefs who have won a national renown under the Old Flag—intrenched in hills of his own choosing, and strengthened by all the appliances of military art. With no experience but the consciousness of your own manhood, you have driven him from his strongholds, pursued his inglorious flight, and compelled him to meet you in battle. When forced to fight, he sought the shelter of rocks and hills. You drove him from his position, leaving scores of his bloody dead unburied. His artillery thundered against you, but you compelled him to flee by the light of his burning stores, and to leave even the banner of his rebellion behind him. I greet you as brave men. Our common country will not forget you. She will not forget the sacred dead who fell beside you, nor those of your comrades who won scars of honor on the field.

“I have recalled you from the pursuit that you may regain vigor for still greater exertions. Let no one tarnish his well-earned honor by any act unworthy an American soldier. Remember your duties as American citizens, and sacredly respect the rights and property of those with whom you may come in contact. Let it not be said that good men dread the approach of an American army.

“Officers and soldiers, your duty has been nobly done. For this I thank you.”

On this day, January 11th, the troops took possession of Prestonburg, and the remaining duties of the campaign were only the working out in detail of results already secured. As to the merits of the decisive little fight at Middle Creek, Garfield said at a later time: “It was a very rash and imprudent affair on my part. If I had been an officer of more experience, I probably should not have made the attack. As it was, having gone into the army with the notion that fighting was our business, I didn’t know any better.” And Judge Clark, of the Forty-second Ohio, adds: “And during it all, Garfield was the soldiers’ friend. Such was his affection for the men that he would divide his last rations with them, and nobody ever found any thing better at head-quarters than the rest got.”

Indeed, there was one occasion, I believe just after this engagement, when the Eighteenth Brigade owed to its brave commander its possession of any thing at all to eat. The roads had become impassable, rations were growing scarce, and the Big Sandy, on which they relied, was so high that nothing could be brought up to them; at least the boatmen thought so. But our old acquaintance, the canal boy, still survived, in the shape of a gallant colonel, and with his admirer and former canal companion, Brown, Garfield boldly started down the raging stream in a skiff. Arriving at Catlettsburg, he found a small steamer, the Sandy Valley, which he loaded with provisions, and ordered captain and crew to get up steam and take him back. They all refused, on the ground that such an attempt would end in failure, and probably in loss of life. But they did not know their man. His orders were repeated, and he went to the wheel himself. It was a wild torrent to run against. The river was far out of its natural limits, rushing around the foot of a chain of hills at sharp curves. In some places it was over fifty feet deep, and where the opposite banks rose close together the half-undermined trees would lean inward, their interlocking branches making the passage beneath both difficult and dangerous. But the undaunted leader pressed on, himself at the wheel forty hours out of the forty-eight. Brown stood steadfastly at the bow, carrying a forked pole, with which to ward off the big logs and trees which constantly threatened to strike the boat and stave in the bottom. The most exciting incident of all occurred the second night. At a sharp turn the narrow and impetuous flood whirled round and round, a boiling whirlpool; and in spite of great care the boat turned sidewise, and stuck fast in the muddy bank. Repeated efforts to pry the boat off were unavailing, and at last a new plan was suggested. Colonel Garfield ordered the men to lower a small boat, carry a line across, and pull the little steamer out of difficulty. They said no living mortal could attempt that feat and not die. This was just what they had said about starting the steamer from Catlettsburg, and the answer was similar. Our hero leaped into the skiff himself, the faithful Brown following.

Sturdily and steadily they pulled away, and in half an hour were on terra firma once more. Line in hand, they walked up to a place opposite the Sandy Valley, fixed the rope to a rail, and standing at the other end with an intervening tree to give leverage, soon had the satisfaction of seeing, or rather in the darkness feeling, the steamer swing out again into the current. After this impossibility had been turned into history, there was no more doubting from the incredulous crew. They concluded that this man could do any thing, and henceforth helped him willingly. At the end of three days, amid prolonged and enthusiastic cheering from the half-starved waiting brigade, the Sandy Valley arrived at her destination, and James A. Garfield had finished one more of his great life’s thousand deeds of heroism.

Immediately after the battle of Middle Creek great consternation filled the minds of that ignorant population which filled the valley of the Big Sandy. The flying rebels, the dead and the debris of a fugitive army, and wild stories of savage barbarities practiced by an inhuman Yankee soldiery, had been more than enough for their fortitude. They fled like frightened deer at the blast of a hunter’s horn, and sought safety in mountain fastnesses. It was therefore necessary by some means to gain their confidence, and for this purpose the following proclamation was issued from the Federal head-quarters:

“HEAD-QUARTERS EIGHTEENTH BRIGADE, } “PAINTVILLE, KY., January 16, 1862. }

“Citizens of the Sandy Valley: I have come among you to restore the honor of the Union, and to bring back the Old Banner which you all once loved, but which, by the machinations of evil men, and by mutual misunderstandings, has been dishonored among you. To those who are in arms against the Federal Government I offer only the alternative of battle or unconditional surrender; but to those who have taken no part in this war, who are in no way aiding or abetting the enemies of the Union, even to those who hold sentiments adverse to the Union, but yet give no aid and comfort to its enemies, I offer the full protection of the Government, both in their persons and property.

“Let those who have been seduced away from the love of their country, to follow after and aid the destroyers of our peace, lay down their arms, return to their homes, bear true allegiance to the Federal Government, and they also shall enjoy like protection. The army of the Union wages no war of plunder, but comes to bring back the prosperity of peace. Let all peace-loving citizens who have fled from their homes return, and resume again the pursuits of peace and industry. If citizens have suffered from any outrages by the soldiers under my command, I invite them to make known their complaints to me, and their wrongs shall be redressed, and the offenders punished. I expect the friends of the Union in this valley to banish from among them all private feuds, and to let a liberal-minded love of country direct their conduct toward those who have been so sadly estranged and misguided. I hope that these days of turbulence may soon end, and the better days of the Republic may soon return.

“[Signed],

“JAMES A. GARFIELD, “Colonel Commanding Brigade.”

After the true character of the invaders became known, the natives were as familiar as they had been shy, and multitudes of them came into camp. From their reports, and from the industry of the small parties of cavalry which scoured the country in all directions, it was established beyond doubt that the rebel army had no more foot-hold in the State; although sundry small parties still remained, endeavoring to secure recruits for the forces in Virginia, and destroying many things which could be of use to the Union soldiers. In order to be nearer the scene of these petty operations, Colonel Garfield moved his head-quarters to Piketon, thirty miles further up the river. From this point he effectually stopped all further depredations, except in one locality. And it was in removing this exception to their general supremacy that the Eighteenth Brigade performed its last notable exploit in Eastern Kentucky.

The principal pathway between Virginia and South-Eastern Kentucky is by means of Pound Gap. This is a rugged pass in the Cumberland Mountains, through which Marshall had in the fall of 1861 made his loudly-heralded advance, and, later, his inglorious retreat. Here one Major Thomas had made a stand, with about six hundred men. Log huts were built by them for shelter, the narrow entrance to their camp was well fortified, and for snug winter-quarters they could want nothing better. When in need of provisions a small party would sally forth, dash down into the valleys, and return well laden with plunder. Garfield soon determined to break up this mountain nest; and early in March was incited to immediate action by a report that Humphrey Marshall was making that place the starting point for a new expedition. He had issued orders for all available forces to be gathered there on the 15th of March, preparatory to the intended re-invasion of Kentucky. To frustrate this scheme, Garfield started for Pound Gap with six hundred infantry and a hundred cavalry. It was a march of forty-five miles from Piketon in a south-westerly direction. Deep snows covered the ground, icy hillsides were hard to climb, and progress was difficult. On the evening of the second day, however, they reached the foot of the ascent which led up to the object for which they had come. Here they stopped until morning, meanwhile endeavoring to discover the number and condition of the mountain paths. The information obtained was meager, but sufficient to help form a plan of attack. One main path led directly up to the Gap. When morning came, Garfield sent his cavalry straight up in this direction, to occupy the enemy’s attention, while with the infantry he was climbing the mountains and endeavoring to surprise them in the rear. After a long and perilous scramble, they reached a point within a quarter of a mile of the rebel camp. They were first apprised of their nearness to it by the sight of a picket, who fired on them and hastened to give the alarm. But the eager troops were close after him, and the panic-stricken marauders vanished hastily without a struggle, and were chased by the Union cavalry far into Virginia.

After resting a day and night in these luxurious quarters, the huts were burned, the fortifications destroyed, and in less than five days from the start, the successful Colonel was back again in Piketon.

This was the end of Garfield’s campaign in East Kentucky. There was no more fighting to be done; and after a few days he was called into another field of action.

When Colonel Garfield’s official report of the battle of Middle Creek reached Louisville, General Buell replied by the following, which tells the story of his delight at the result:

“HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO, LOUISVILLE, KY., January 20th, 1862.

“General Orders, No. 40.

“The General Commanding takes occasion to thank Colonel Garfield and his troops for their successful campaign against the rebel force under General Marshall, on the Big Sandy, and their gallant conduct in battle. They have overcome formidable difficulties in the character of the country, the condition of the roads, and the inclemency of the season; and, without artillery, have in several engagements, terminating with the battle on Middle Creek on the 10th inst., driven the enemy from his intrenched positions, and forced him back into the mountains with the loss of a large amount of baggage and stores, and many of his men killed or captured.

“These services have called into action the highest qualities of a soldier—fortitude, perseverance, courage.

“By command of General Buell.

“JAMES B. FRY, “A. A. G., Chief of Staff.”

But this was not the only reward. The news went on to Washington, and in a few days Garfield received his commission as a Brigadier-General, dated back to January 10th.

The defeat of Marshall was conspicuous on account of its place and time. Since the defeat of the Union army at Bull Bun, in July of the preceding year, no important victory had been gained. The confidence of the North in its military leaders had began to waver. General McClellan had turned himself and his army into a gigantic stumbling block, and patriots were getting discouraged. No wonder that Lincoln and Buell were grateful for a man who was willing to wade through difficulties, and disturb the stagnant pool of listless war!

On the night of January 10, an interview occurred between the President and several persons, one of whom, General McDowell, has preserved the knowledge of what occurred in a memorandum made at the time. He says:

“The President was greatly disturbed at the state of affairs. Spoke of the exhausted condition of the treasury; of the loss of public credit; of the Jacobinism of Congress; of the delicate condition of our foreign relations; of the bad news he had received from the West, particularly as contained in a letter from General Halleck on the state of affairs in Missouri; of the want of coöperation between Generals Halleck and Buell; but, more than all, the sickness of General McClellan. The President said he was in great distress; and, as he had been to General McClellan’s house, and the General did not ask to see him, and as he must talk to somebody, he had sent for General Franklin and myself to obtain our opinion as to the possibility of soon commencing active operations with the Army of the Potomac. To use his own expression, if something was not soon done, the bottom would be out of the whole affair; and if General McClellan did not want to use the army, he would like to borrow it, provided he could see how it could be made to do something.”

This shows how necessary some decisive action now was to the safety of the Union. And to Garfield belonged the honor of ushering in an era of glorious successes.

On the 19th of January, General Thomas defeated Zollicoffer’s army, killed its general, and chased the remnants into Tennessee. This gave us Kentucky, and completed the break in the extreme right wing of Johnston’s Confederate army. Just after this came Grant’s successful move on the left wing of that army. Proceeding rapidly up the Tennessee, he took Fort Henry, then crossed over to the Cumberland, and, on February 16th, captured Fort Donelson. Other actions followed in quick succession. The South, fallen into false security during our long inactivity, was completely astonished. The North, thoroughly aroused, believed in itself again; and, with exultant tread, our armies began to march rapidly into the enemy’s country.

Colonel Garfield’s career in the Sandy Valley was not the cause of all these good things. The first faint light which warns a watcher of the dawn of day, is not the cause of day. But that early light is looked for none the less eagerly. Middle Creek was greeted by a Nation with just such sentiments.

Historians of the Civil War will not waste much time in considering this Kentucky campaign. Its range was too small; the student’s attention is naturally drawn to the more striking fortunes of the greater armies of the Republic. But, as we have seen, the intrinsic merits of Colonel Garfield’s work here were such as forced it upon the attention of his official superiors. As we have also seen, this campaign occurred at a time when small advantages could be appreciated, because no great ones were being secured. And the hand of Time, which obliterates campaigns, and effaces kingdoms, and sinks continents out of sight, will never quite neglect to keep a torch lighted here, until the starry light of all our triumphs shall go out in the darkness together.

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V. HERO AND GENERAL

Hark to that roar whose swift and deafening peals In countless echoes through the mountains ring, Startling pale Midnight on her starry throne! Now swells the intermingling din—the jar, Frequent and frightful, of the bursting bomb, The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout, The ceaseless clangor, and the rush of men!—Shelley.

On the 23d of March, 1862, orders reached General Garfield, in Eastern Kentucky, to report at once, with his command, to General Buell at Louisville. It had been determined to concentrate the Army of the Ohio under Buell, move southward to Savannah, Tennessee, there effect a junction with the Army of the Tennessee, which, under General Grant, was on its way up the Tennessee River, after the victories at Forts Donelson and Henry, and, with the united force, move forward to Corinth, Mississippi. Garfield ceased, from that time, to be a commander of an independent force, and became merged, with others of his rank, in the great Army of the Ohio. He proceeded to Louisville with all possible dispatch. But Buell was already far on the road to Savannah. Finding orders, he at once hurried southward, and overtook Buell at Columbia, where the army had to construct a bridge over Duck River. The rebels had burned the old bridge; and, at that stage of the war, pontoon bridges were not to be had. Garfield was at once assigned to the command of the Twentieth Brigade, of General Thomas J. Wood’s division. During this delay at Duck River, General Nelson, hearing that Grant had already reached Savannah, asked permission of Buell to let his division ford or swim the river and hurry on to Grant. As there was no known reason for hurrying to Grant, who sent word that he was in no danger of attack, the permission was coldly given. But it was this impatience of Nelson which saved Grant’s army at Shiloh. With Nelson’s division a day in advance, the remainder of the army followed at intervals—with Crittenden’s division second, McCook’s third, then Wood’s—to which Garfield belonged—and last Thomas’s. It had been intended to halt at Waynesboro for a day’s rest, but the impetuous Nelson was beyond the town before he had heard of it, and his speed had communicated itself to the succeeding divisions. In this way Nelson reached Savannah on the 5th of April. Grant’s army was at Pittsburg Landing, ten miles up the river. The world knows of the unexpected and terrific battle, beginning on the 6th and lasting two days. Nelson reached Grant at 5 P. M. of the first day’s fight, Crittenden during the night, and McCook about 9 A. M. of the next day. These reinforcements alone saved Grant’s army from destruction. Wood, impeded by the baggage trains abandoned in the road by the preceding divisions, who were straining every nerve to reach Grant in time, only reached the battle-field as the fighting closed. Garfield’s brigade and some other troops were sent in pursuit of the flying enemy; but their great fatigue from continuous marching, and the darkness of the night, soon recalled the pursuit. On the following morning, Garfield’s brigade took part in a severe fight with the enemy’s cavalry, but it was only a demonstration to cover retreat.

Halleck, Commander-in-Chief, reached Pittsburg Landing April 11th, and began a remarkably slow advance upon Corinth, the objective point of the campaign. The army was required to construct parallels of fortification to cover each day’s advance; and, in this way, it took six weeks to march the thirty miles which lay between the army and Corinth. While lying before Corinth, as throughout his career in the army, Garfield gratified, as much as possible, his love of literature. He had with him several small volumes of the classics, which he read every day. He rather preferred Horace, as being “the most philosophic of the pagans.”

During this time an incident occurred which showed well the character of Garfield. One day a Southern ruffian, a human blood-hound, came riding into camp, demanding that the soldiers hunt and deliver to him a wretched fugitive slave who had preceded him. The poor negro, who was badly wounded from the blows of the bully’s whip, had sought the blue-coats for protection, and had succeeded in concealing himself from his relentless pursuer among Garfield’s command. The swearing braggart, being misled and foiled by the soldiers, who not only sympathized with the slave, but enjoyed the swaggerer’s wrath, at length demanded to be shown to the head-quarters of the division commander. The latter, after hearing the complaint, wrote an order to Garfield to require his men to hunt out and surrender the trembling vagabond. Garfield took the order from the aid, read it, quietly refolded it, and indorsed on it the following reply:

“I respectfully, but positively, decline to allow my command to search for, or deliver up, any fugitive slaves. I conceive that they are here for quite another purpose. The command is open, and no obstacle will be placed in the way of the search.”

It was a courageous act, but he had never known fear. A court-martial, with a swift sentence of death, was the remedy for refusals to obey orders. When told of his danger, he said:

“The matter may as well be tested first as last. Right is right, and I do not propose to mince matters at all. My soldiers are here for far other purposes than hunting and returning fugitive slaves. My people on the Western Reserve of Ohio did not send my boys and myself down here to do that kind of business, and they will back me up in my action.”

But no court-martial was held. A short time afterwards the War Department issued a general order embodying the principle of Garfield’s refusal; and from that time it was the rule in all the armies of the Republic that no soldier should hound a human being back to fetters.

After the six weeks’ preparation for the siege of Corinth, Halleck found that only the hull of the nut was left for him. The wily enemy had evacuated the place without a struggle. The vast Union army, which had been massed for this campaign, having no foe to oppose it, was resolved into its original elements. The Army of the Ohio, under Buell, was ordered to East Tennessee, preparatory to an attack on Chattanooga. The advance to the east, was along the line of the Memphis and Chattanooga Railroad. This road had to be almost entirely rebuilt, as the supplies for the army were to come along its line. This work of rebuilding was assigned to Wood’s division, and Garfield’s brigade laid down the musket to handle the spade and hammer. Here, Garfield’s boyhood experience with tools, was of incalculable value. If a culvert was to be built, his head planned a swift, but substantial way, to build it. If a bridge had been burned, his eye saw quickly how to shape the spans, and secure the braces. His mind was of the rare sort which combines speculative with practical powers. His spirit electrified his men, as it had the school at Hiram; and, in the drudgery of the work, from which the inspiration of battle was wholly wanting, it was he who cheered and encouraged their unwonted toil. The work, for the time being, having been finished, Garfield’s head-quarters were established at Huntsville, Alabama, the most beautiful town in America. But the exposures of army life, the tremendous exertions put forth in rebuilding the railroad, and the fierce rays of the summer sun, in the unaccustomed climate, laid hold on his constitution, in which the old boyhood tendency to ague was all the time dormant; and in the latter part of July, 1862, he was attacked by malarial fever. In the rough surroundings of the camp, as he tossed on his feverish couch, his thoughts turned longingly to the young wife and child in that humble northern home. Procuring sick-leave, he started north about the first of August.

The War Department had an eye upon Garfield, and determined to give his abilities free scope. Five divisions of Buell’s army we have followed to Corinth, and thence, along the tedious march to Chattanooga. A sixth division had been sent on a separate expedition to Northern Mississippi, and a seventh, under General Geo. W. Morgan, to occupy East Tennessee, and, in particular, Cumberland Gap. In the early part of August, orders reached Garfield to proceed to Cumberland Gap and take command of the seventh division of the Army of the Ohio, relieving General Morgan. But when the order reached Garfield, he was already on his way north, fast held by the malignant clutch of low fever.

While Garfield had been with the army before Corinth, and on the line of march toward Chattanooga, the general discipline was very loose. The army camp is the most demoralizing place in the world. The men lose all self-restraint, and lapse into ferocious and barbarous manners. The check for this is discipline; but the volunteer troops, in the early stages of the war, utterly scouted the idea of discipline. To render it effective, the Army of the Ohio had to be reduced to a basis of strict military order. Courts-martial were frequent. Garfield’s judicial mind and sound judgment, combined with the knowledge of discipline which his experience as a teacher had given him, caused him to be sought for eagerly, to conduct these courts-martial. He was idolized by his own men, but his ability in the drum-head courts spread his fame throughout the division. The trial of Colonel Turchin, for conduct unbecoming an officer, was the one which attracted most attention.

The report of the trial to the War Department, prepared by Garfield, had served to still further heighten the opinion of his abilities entertained there. Garfield had been at home, on his sick leave, about a month, and had begun to rally from the fever, when he received orders to report at Washington City as soon as his health would permit. Shortly after this he again bade farewell to his girlish wife, and started to the Capital. The service for which he was required there, was none other than to sit on the memorable court-martial of Fitz-John Porter, the most important military trial of the war. The charges against Porter are well known. He was accused of having disobeyed five distinct orders to bring his command to the front in time to take part in the second battle of Bull Run. The trial lasted nearly two months. Garfield was required to pass upon complicated questions, involving the rules of war, the situation and surroundings of Porter’s command previous to the battle, the duties of subordinate commanders, and the military possibilities of the situation. In such a trial, the common sense of a strong, but unprofessional mind, was more valuable than the technical training of a soldier. The question at issue was, whether Porter had kept his own opinions to himself and cheerfully obeyed his superior’s orders, even if he did not approve them, or whether, through anger or jealousy, he had sulked in the rear, so as to insure the defeat which he prophesied. Garfield threw all his powers into the investigation, and at last was convinced that Porter was guilty. Such was the verdict of the Court; such, the opinion of Presidents Lincoln and Grant, and such will be the opinion of posterity.

During this trial, Garfield became a warm friend of Major-General Hunter, the presiding officer of the court, and in command of our forces in South Carolina. After the adjournment, Hunter made an application to Secretary Stanton to have Garfield assigned to the Army of South Carolina. The appointment was made. It was gratifying to Garfield, because Hunter was one of the strong antislavery generals, whom, at that time, were few enough. Garfield felt that the war, though being fought on the technical question of a State’s right to secede, was really a war to destroy the hideous and bloody institution of slavery, and he wished to see it carried on with that avowed purpose. As he afterwards expressed it: “In the very crisis of our fate, God brought us face to face with the alarming truth, that we must lose our own freedom or grant it to the slave.”

In the same address from which the above is taken, which was delivered before the war had actually closed, he declared that slavery was dead, and the war had killed it:

“We shall never know why slavery dies so hard in this Republic and in this hall till we know why sin has such longevity and Satan is immortal. With marvelous tenacity of existence, it has outlived the expectations of its friends and the hopes of its enemies. It has been declared here and elsewhere to be in all the several stages of mortality, wounded, moribund, dead. The question has been raised, whether it was indeed dead, or only in a troubled sleep. I know of no better illustration of its condition than is found in Sallust’s admirable history of the great conspirator Catiline, who, when his final battle was fought and lost, his army broken and scattered, was found far in advance of his own troops, lying among the dead enemies of Rome, yet breathing a little, but exhibiting in his countenance all that ferocity of spirit which had characterized his life. So, sir, this body of slavery lies before us among the dead enemies of the Republic, mortally wounded, impotent in its fiendish wickedness, but with its old ferocity of look, bearing the unmistakable marks of its infernal origin.”—House of Representatives, January 13, 1865.

But in war it is always the unexpected which happens. Pending Garfield’s departure to Hunter’s command, his old army, then merged with the Army of the Cumberland, under the command of General Rosecrans, who relieved Buell, had, on the last day of the year of 1862, plunged into the battle of Stone River. During the day a cannon-ball took off the head of the beloved Garesché, chief of General Rosecrans’s staff. The place was important, and hard to fill. It required a man of high military ability to act as chief confidential adviser of the commanding general, both as to the general plan of a campaign, and the imperious exigencies of battle. Rosecrans had relied much on Garesché, and, just when so much was expected of the Army of the Cumberland, the War Department feared the testy General might become unmanageable, and, though well versed in the practice of warfare, give way just at the crisis. The chief of staff also had to be a man of pleasant social qualities to fit him for the intimate relation.

Much as the War Department at Washington thought of Rosecrans at this time, his violent temper and invincible obstinacy rendered it imperative that some one should be with him who would prevent an absolute rupture upon trifling grounds. But in addition to these things, the chief of staff had to be a man of faultless generosity and unselfishness; he had to be a man who would exert his own genius for another’s glory; he had to be willing to see the plans of brilliant campaigns, which were the product of his own mind, taken up and used by another; he had to be willing to see reports of victories, which were the results of his own military skill, sent to Washington over the name of the commanding general, in which his own name was never mentioned. He was to do the work and get no glory for it. All this he had to do cheerfully, and with a heart loyal to his superior. There must be no division of counsel, no lukewarm support, no heart-burnings at head-quarters. To the army and the world there was but one man—the general. In reality there were two men—the general and his chief of staff.

A prime minister sometimes succeeds in erecting for himself a fame separate, and not merged in the splendor of his sovereign. Wolsey and Richelieu and Talleyrand all did so. But the chief of staff was to know no fame, no name for himself. His light was merged and lost in the corruscations of the man above him. To find a man who united the highest military ability with a genial nature, and who was willing to go utterly without glory himself, was a difficult task. In a moment Stanton fixed his eye on Garfield. Without warning, the commission to South Carolina was revoked. Garfield was ordered to report at once to General Rosecrans, whose head-quarters were at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, as a result of the victory at Stone River.

Rosecrans has said that he was prejudiced against Garfield before his arrival. He had heard that he was a Campbellite preacher, and fond of theological debate, and a school teacher. These three things were enough to spoil any man for Rosecrans. So he gave Garfield a cool enough reception on the January morning when the latter presented himself at head-quarters. Rosecrans, of course, had the option of taking the man whom the Department had sent him, to be his confidential adviser or not. Garfield’s appearance, to be sure, was not that of the pious fraud, or the religious wrangler, or the precise pedagogue. In the book, Down in Tennessee, we find the following superb description of his appearance at this time, by one who saw him:

“In a corner by the window, seated at a small pine desk—a sort of packing-box, perched on a long-legged stool, and divided into pigeonholes, with a turn-down lid—was a tall, deep-chested, sinewy-built man, with regular, massive features, a full, clear blue eye, slightly tinged with gray, and a high, broad forehead, rising into a ridge over the eyes, as if it had been thrown up by a plow. There was something singularly engaging in his open, expressive face, and his whole appearance indicated, as the phrase goes, ‘great reserve power.’ His uniform, though cleanly brushed and sitting easily upon him, had a sort of democratic air, and every thing about him seemed to denote that he was ‘a man of the people,’ A rusty slouched hat, large enough to have fitted Daniel Webster, lay on the desk before him; but a glance at that was not needed to convince me that his head held more than the common share of brains. Though he is yet young—not thirty-three—the reader has heard of him, and if he lives he will make his name long remembered in our history.”

After some conversation, Rosecrans concluded to go a little slow before he rejected his services. He kept Garfield around head-quarters for a day or two, quizzing him occasionally, and trying to make up his estimate of the man. This sort of dancing attendance for a position he did not want, would have galled a man of less ability and cheaper pride than Garfield; but he had the patience of a planet. “Rosey,” as his soldiers called him, soon found himself liking this great whole-souled Ohioan, and, what was still more significant, he began to reverence the genius of the man. He was unable to sink a plumb-line to the bottom of Garfield’s mind. After each conversation, the depths of reserve power seemed deeper than before. Rosecrans decided within himself to take him, if possible. Only one thing stood in the way. If Garfield preferred to go to the field, as he had himself prophesied from his name (Guard-of-the-field) just before leaving college in 1856, Rosecrans was not the man to chain him up at head-quarters. The choice was open to Garfield to take a division or accept the position of chief of staff. The latter had fifty times the responsibility, and no opportunity whatever for fame. But without a moment’s struggle, Garfield quietly said: “If you want my services as chief of staff, you can have them.”

The opinion in the army of the selection of General Garfield to succeed the lamented Garesché, may be gathered from a volume called: “Annals of the Army of the Cumberland,” published shortly after Garfield’s appointment, and written by an officer in the army. “With the selection of General Garfield, universal satisfaction is everywhere expressed. Possessed of sound natural sense, an excellent judgment, a highly cultivated intellect, and the deserved reputation of a successful military leader, he is not only the Mentor of the staff, but his opinions are sought and his counsels heeded by many who are older, and not less distinguished than himself.”

An incident which occurred soon after his appointment, illustrates well the aspect of his many-sided character, as presented to the common soldier. Civilians have little idea of the gulf which military discipline and etiquette places between the regular army officer and the private soldier. Never was a Russian czar more of a despot and autocrat than a West Point graduate. It seems to be an unavoidable outgrowth of the profession of arms and military discipline that the officer should be a sultan and the private a slave. One night, at Rosecrans’s head-quarters in Murfreesboro, the officers’ council lasted till the small hours of the morning. The outer hall, into which the room used by the council opened, was occupied by a dozen orderly sergeants, who were required to be there, ready for instant service all the time. As the hours advanced, and there was no indication of an adjournment within, this outer council got sleepy, and selecting one of its number to keep watch, rolled itself up in various ragged army blankets and tumbled on the floor. It was not long till the air trembled with heavy blasts from the leaden trumpet of sleep. The unlucky fellow, who was left to guard, was envious enough of his sleeping comrades. Tilting his seat back against the wall, he sank into deep meditation upon the pleasures of sleep. A few minutes later, sundry sudden jerks of his head, from side to side, told that he, too, had found surcease from sorrow in sonorous slumber. Just at this unlucky moment the door opened, and General Garfield stepped out into the dimly-lighted passage, on his way to his quarters. The sleeper’s legs were stretched out far in front of him with lofty negligence; his arms hung by his side; his head, from which the cap was gone, hung down in an alarming manner, as if he were making a profound and attentive investigation of his boots. At this unlucky moment, Garfield stumbled over the sergeant, and fell with his full weight upon the frightened orderly. Military discipline required that Garfield should fire a volley of oaths at the poor fellow, supplemented by a heavy cannonade of kicks in the enemy’s rear, and the cutting down of his supplies to bread and water for a week. Orderlies at head-quarters knew this to be the plan of battle. General Garfield rose to his feet as quickly as possible, gave the unfortunate and trembling sergeant his assistance to rise, and after a kindly “excuse me, Sergeant, I did not see you. I’m afraid you did not find me very light,” passed on his way. It is easy to see why the common soldiers loved a chief of staff in whom the gentleman was stronger than the officer.

During the tedious delay at Murfreesboro, the officers and men exercised their ingenuity in inventing games to pass away the time. Phil. Sheridan, out at his quarters in the forest surrounding the town, had invented a game which he called Dutch ten-pins. Out in front of his cabin, from the limb of a lofty tree, was suspended a rope. At the end was attached a cannon-ball, small enough to be easily grasped by the hand. Underneath the rope were set the ten-pins, with sufficient spaces between them for the ball to pass without hitting. At first the fun-loving little General only tried to throw the ball between the pins without knocking any. But as his skill increased, he enlarged the opportunity for it by making the game to consist not only in avoiding the pins on the throw, but in making the ball hit them on the return. Sheridan became very fond of the exercise, and in the three throws allowed each player for a game, he could bring down twenty pins out of the thirty possible. The reputation of the novel game and Sheridan’s skill reached the commanding General’s head-quarters. One day Rosecrans, Garfield, and a few brother officers, rode out to see “little Phil,” as Sheridan was called, and take a hand in the game which had made for itself such a name. The guests were cordially received, and after a good many jokes and much bantering, Sheridan began the game. At the first throw the returning ball brought down six pins; at the second, seven; and the third the same number, making a score of twenty. Several tried with more or less success, but not approaching the host’s score. When Rosecrans took the ball, the merry company laughed at his nervous way of handling it. After a lengthy aim, he threw and knocked down every pin by the throw. Again he tried it, and again the ball failed even to get through the wooden line. Sheridan nearly exploded with laughter. A third time he met with the same ill-luck, failing to make a single tally. Then General Garfield stepped forward, saying: “It’s nothing but mathematics. All you need is an eye and a hand.” So saying, he carelessly threw the ball, safely clearing the pins on the forward swing, and bringing down seven on the return. Every body shouted “Luck! luck! Try that again.” The chief of staff laughed heartily, and with still greater indifference, tossed the ball, making eight; the third throw had a like result, scoring Garfield twenty-three, and giving him the game. It was no wonder that an officer said of him, “That man Garfield beats every thing. No matter what he does, he is the superior of his competitors, without half trying.”

On the 25th of April, 1863, Garfield issued a circular to the Army of the Cumberland, upon the barbarities and unspeakable outrages of the Southern prison-pens. The circular contained a verbatim statement by an escaped prisoner of his treatment by the rebels. After a few burning words, General Garfield concluded: “We can not believe that the justice of God will allow such a people to prosper. Let every soldier know that death on the battle-field is preferable to a surrender followed by such outrages as their comrades have undergone.”

Every word of the circular was true. The time may come, when the South will be forgiven for fighting for principles which it believed to be right. The time may come when the sorrows of the North and South will become alike the sorrows of each other, over the ruin wrought by human folly. The right hand of fellowship will be extended. The Southern people, as a people, may be relieved of the fearful charge of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and posterity may come to look at it as the infernal offspring of a few hell-born hearts. The day is upon us when much of this is already true. But the men who directly or indirectly caused or countenanced the starvation, the torture, the poisoned and rotten food, the abandonment to loathsome disease, the crowding of thousands of Union prisoners into stockades, opening only heavenward, and all the other unparalleled atrocities of the Southern prisons, atrocities that violated every rule of warfare; atrocities, to find the equals of which the history of barbarous and savage nations, without the light of religion, or the smile of civilization, will be ransacked in vain, shall be handed down to an eternity of infamy. They shall take rank with the Caligulas, the Neros, the inquisitors, all the historic monsters in human form, whose names and natures are the common dishonor and disgrace of mankind.

About this time there appeared in Rosecrans’s camp, with drooping feathers, but brazen face, the thing which patriotism denominated “a copperhead.” He was a northern citizen by the name of Vallandigham, from Garfield’s own State, who had been ostracised by his neighbors for his treason, and compelled to leave the community of patriots to seek congenial company within the rebel lines. He was to have an escort to the enemy’s camp. A squad waited outside to perform this touching task, under the cover of a flag of truce. Vallandigham, who had the mind, if not the heart, of a man, in forced jocularity dramatically spoke the lines from Romeo and Juliet—

“Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.”

Quick as thought Garfield completed the quotation—

“I must begone and live, or stay and die.”

The joke was funny to every one but Vallandigham, but he was the only man in the room who laughed aloud.

A little later President Hinsdale wrote to General Garfield about the treasonable views of some copperhead students at Hiram. Above all things Garfield detested a foe in the rear. He respected a man who avouched his principles on the crimsoned field, but a traitor, a coward, was to his candid nature despicable beyond language. His letter in reply is characteristic:

“HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE CUMBERLAND, } MURFREESBORO, May 26, 1863. }

“Tell all those copperhead students for me that, were I there in charge of the school, I would not only dishonorably dismiss them from the school, but, if they remained in the place and persisted in their cowardly treason, I would apply to General Burnside to enforce General Order No. 38 in their cases....

“If these young traitors are in earnest they should go to the Southern Confederacy, where they can receive full sympathy. Tell them all that I will furnish them passes through our lines, where they can join Vallandigham and their other friends till such time as they can destroy us, and come back home as conquerors of their own people, or can learn wisdom and obedience.

“I know this apparently is a small matter, but it is only apparently small. We do not know what the developments of a month may bring forth, and, if such things be permitted at Hiram, they may anywhere. The rebels catch up all such facts as sweet morsels of comfort, and every such influence lengthens the war and adds to the bloodshed.”

It was about the same time the above letter was written that a letter was brought to Rosecrans’s head-quarters, detailing an extensive plan for a universal insurrection of the slaves throughout the South. The rising was to take place August 1st. The slaves were to arm themselves with whatever they could get, and their especial work was to cut off the supplies of the rebel forces. “An army is dependent on its belly,” said Napoleon. To destroy the bridges and railroads within the Confederacy would swiftly undermine the rebel armies, whose rations and ammunition came along those routes. With the universal coöperation of the Union forces, it was thought the Rebellion might be crushed. To secure the coöperation of Rosecrans was the apparent object of the letter. General Garfield talked it over with his chief, and denounced the plan in the most unmeasured terms. He said that if the slaves wanted to revolt that was one thing. But for the Union army to violate the rules of warfare by encouraging and combining with a war upon non-combatants was not to be thought of. The colored people would have committed every excess upon the innocent women and children of the South. The unfortunate country would not only be overrun with war, but with riot. Rosecrans resolved to have nothing to do with it. But Garfield still was not satisfied. The letter said that several commanders had already given their assent. He sent the letter to President Lincoln with a statement of the results which would follow such irregular warfare. A letter of Garfield, written on the subject, says:

“I am clearly of opinion that the negro project is in every way bad, and should be repudiated, and, if possible, thwarted. If the slaves should, of their own accord, rise and assert their original right to themselves, and cut their way through rebeldom, that is their own affair; but the Government could have no complicity with it without outraging the sense of justice of the civilized world. We would create great sympathy for the rebels abroad, and God knows they have too much already.”

Lincoln gave the matter his attention, and the slave revolt never took place in any magnitude. It was an ambitious scheme on paper, and yet was not utterly impracticable. It was a thing to be crushed in its infancy, and Garfield’s action was the proper way to do it.

While Garfield was with Rosecrans, he was addressed by some prominent Northerners upon the subject of running Rosecrans for the Presidency. Greeley and many leading Republicans were dissatisfied with Lincoln in 1862–’63, and wanted to work up another candidate for the campaign of ’64. Attracted by Rosecrans’s successes, they put the plan on foot by opening communication with Garfield, in whom they had great confidence, upon the feasibility of defeating Mr. Lincoln in the convention, with Rosecrans. Garfield, however, put his foot on the whole ambitious scheme. He said that no man on earth could equal Lincoln in that trying hour. To take Rosecrans was to destroy both a wonderful President and an excellent soldier. So effectually did he smother the plan, that it is said Rosecrans never heard a whisper of it.

A most important work of General Garfield, as chief of staff, was his attack upon the corrupting vice of smuggling, and his defense of the army police. When an army is in an active campaign, marching, fighting, and fortifying, there is but little corruption developed. But in a large volunteer army, with its necessarily lax discipline when lying idle for a long time, its quarters become infested with all the smaller vices. The men are of every sort; and, as soon as they are idle, their heads get full of mischief. The Army of the Cumberland, during its long inactivity at Murfreesboro, soon began to suffer. The citizens were hostile, and had but two objects—one to serve the Confederacy, the other to make money for themselves. They thus all became spies and smugglers. Smuggling was the great army vice. The profits of cotton, smuggled contraband through the Union lines to the North, and of medicines, arms, leather, whisky, and a thousand Northern manufactures, through to the South, were simply incalculable. Bribery was the most effective, but not the only way of smuggling articles through the lines. The Southern women, famous the world over for their beauty and their captivating and passionate manners, would entangle the officers in their meshes in order to extort favors. To break up this smuggling, and get fresh information of any plots or pitfalls for the Union army, a system of army police had been organized at Nashville and Murfreesboro. This was in a fair state of efficiency when Garfield was appointed chief of staff. To improve it and make its work more available, General Garfield founded a bureau of military information, with General D. G. Swaim for its head. For efficiency, it was never again equaled or approached during the war. Shortly after the establishment of this bureau of information, a determined attack was made on the whole institution. “It marshaled its friends and enemies in almost regimental numbers. Even in the army it has been violently assailed, not only by the vicious in the ranks, but by officers whose evil deeds were not past finding out.” The accusations which were laid before Garfield were always investigated immediately, and always to the vindication of the police department. A special officer was at last detailed to investigate the entire department. His report of the wonderful achievements of the army police is monumental. Garfield was inexorable. Every officer guilty of smuggling had to come down, no matter how prominent he was. The chief of staff set his face like brass against the corruptions. The opportunities open to him for wealth were immense. All that was necessary for him to do was to wink at the smuggling. He had absolute power in the matter. But he fought the evil to its grave. He broke up stealing among the men. He established a system of regular reports from spies on the enemy. His police furnished him with the political status of every family in that section of the State. He knew just the temper of Bragg’s troops, and had a fair idea of their number. He knew just what corn was selling at in the enemy’s lines. Located in a hostile country, honeycombed with a system of rebel spies, he out-spied the enemy, putting spies to watch its spies. In every public capacity, civil or military, virtue is more rare and more necessary than genius. General Garfield’s incorruptible character alone saved the army police from destruction, and restored the Army of the Cumberland to order and honesty. He had, long before entering the army, shown wonderful ability for using assistants to accumulate facts for him. The police institution was an outcropping of the same thing. No commander during the war had more exact and detailed information of the enemy than Garfield had at this time.

When General Garfield reached the Army of the Cumberland, it was in a shattered and exhausted condition. It had no cavalry, the arms were inferior, and the terrible pounding at Stone River had greatly weakened it. General Rosecrans insisted on its recuperation and reinforcement before making another advance. The Department at Washington and Halleck, Commander-in-chief of the Union forces, were of the opinion that an advance should be made. Rosecrans, though possessing some high military skill, was sensitive, headstrong, absorbed in details, and violent of speech. He demanded cavalry, horses, arms, equipments. Dispatch after dispatch came insisting on an advance. Sharper and sharper became the replies. Garfield undertook to soften the venomous correspondence. Angry messages were sometimes suppressed altogether. But he could not control the wrathy commander. Rosecrans held a different, and, as it turned out, an erroneous theory of the best military policy. At first, Garfield’s views harmonized with those of his superior; but, as the month of April passed without movement, as his secret service informed him of the condition and situation of the enemy, he joined his own urgent advice to that of the Department for an advance. Rosecrans was immovable. The army of 60,000 men had been in quarters at Murfreesboro since January 6th without striking a blow at the rebellion. The month of May, with its opening flowers, its fragrant breezes and blue skies, came and went without a move. General Garfield was sick at heart, but he could do nothing. The more Rosecrans was talked to, the more obstinate he became. Garfield had certain information that Bragg’s army had been divided by sending reinforcements to Richmond, but nobody believed it. Besides, Rosecrans was supported in his position by all the generals of his army. Two of these were incompetent—Crittenden and McCook. They had behaved shamefully at Stone River. General Garfield urged their removal, and the substitution of McDowell and Buell. Rosecrans admitted their inefficiency, but said he hated to injure “two such good fellows.” He kept them till the “good fellows” injured him.

At last, on the 8th of June, 1863, Rosecrans, yielding somewhat to the pressure without, and still more to the persuasion of his chief of staff, laid the situation before the seventeen corps, division and cavalry generals of his army, and requested a written opinion from each one upon the advisability of an advance. It is to be remembered that among the seventeen generals were Thomas, Sheridan, Negley, Jeff. C. Davis, Hazen and Granger. Each of these studied the situation, and presented a written individual opinion. With astonishing unanimity, every one of the seventeen opposed an advance. Rosecrans read the opinions. They coincided with his own. But there was a man of genius at his side. Garfield, his confidential adviser, looked at the opinions of the generals in utter dismay. He saw that a crisis had arrived. The Department of War peremptorily demanded an advance; and to let the vast army, with its then excellent equipment, lie idle longer, meant not only the speedy removal of Rosecrans from command, but the greatest danger to the Union cause. He asked Rosecrans time to prepare a written reply to the opinions opposing an advance. Permission was given, though Rosecrans told him it would be wasted work. Collecting all his powers, he began his task. Four days and nights it occupied him. At the end of that time, on June 12th, he presented to Rosecrans the ablest opinion known to have been given to a commanding officer by his chief of staff during the entire war. The paper began with a statement of the questions to be discussed. Next it contained, in tabulated form, the opinions of the generals upon each question. Then followed a swift summary of the reasons presented in the seventeen opinions against the advance. Then began the answer. He presented an elaborate estimate of the strength of Bragg’s army, probably far more accurate and complete than the rebel general had himself. It was made up from the official report of Bragg after the battle of Stone River, from facts obtained from prisoners, deserters, refugees, rebel newspapers, and, above all, from the reports of his army police. The argument showed a perfect knowledge of the rules of organization of the Confederate army. The mass of proofs accompanying the opinion was overwhelming. Then followed a summary and analysis of the Army of the Cumberland. Summing up the relative strength of the two armies, he says, after leaving a strong garrison force at Murfreesboro, “there will be left sixty-five thousand one hundred and thirty-seven bayonets and sabers to throw against Bragg’s forty-one thousand six hundred and eighty.”

He concludes with the following general observations:

“1. Bragg’s army is now weaker than it has been since the battle of Stone River, or is likely to be again for the present, while our army has reached its maximum strength, and we have no right to expect reinforcements for several months, if at all.

“2. Whatever be the result at Vicksburg, the determination of its fate will give large reinforcements to Bragg. If Grant is successful, his army will require many weeks to recover from the shock and strain of his late campaign, while Johnston will send back to Bragg a force sufficient to insure the safety of Tennessee. If Grant fails, the same result will inevitably follow, so far as Bragg’s army is concerned.

“3. No man can predict with certainty the result of any battle, however great the disparity in numbers. Such results are in the hands of God. But, viewing the question in the light of human calculation, I refuse to entertain a doubt that this army, which in January last defeated Bragg’s superior numbers, can overwhelm his present greatly inferior forces.

“4. The most unfavorable course for us that Bragg could take would be to fall back without giving us battle; but this would be very disastrous to him. Besides, the loss of matériel of war and the abandonment of the rich and abundant harvest now nearly ripe in Middle Tennessee, he would lose heavily by desertion. It is well known that a widespread dissatisfaction exists among his Kentucky and Tennessee troops. They are already deserting in large numbers. A retreat would greatly increase both the desire and the opportunity for desertion, and would very materially reduce his physical and moral strength. While it would lengthen our communications, it would give us possession of McMinnville, and enable us to threaten Chattanooga and East Tennessee; and it would not be unreasonable to expect an early occupation of the former place.

“5. But the chances are more than even that a sudden and rapid movement would compel a general engagement, and the defeat of Bragg would be in the highest degree disastrous to the rebellion.

“6. The turbulent aspect of politics in the loyal States renders a decisive blow against the enemy at this time of the highest importance to the success of the Government at the polls, and in the enforcement of the conscription act.

“7. The Government and the War Department believe that this army ought to move upon the enemy. The army desires it, and the country is anxiously hoping for it.

“8. Our true objective point is the rebel army, whose last reserves are substantially in the field; and an effective blow will crush the shell, and soon be followed by the collapse of the rebel government.

“9. You have, in my judgment, wisely delayed a general movement hitherto, till your army could be massed and your cavalry could be mounted. Your mobile force can now be concentrated in twenty-four hours; and your cavalry, if not equal in numerical strength to that of the enemy, is greatly superior in efficiency. For these reasons I believe an immediate advance of all our available forces is advisable, and, under the providence of God, will be successful.”

Rosecrans read the opinion, examined the proofs, and was convinced. “Garfield,” said he, “you have captured me, but how shall the advance be made?”

The situation was about as follows: Imagine an isosceles triangle, with its apex to the north at Murfreesboro. Here the Army of the Cumberland was situated. The base of the triangle was about fifty miles long, and constituted the enemy’s front, with its right terminating at McMinnville, the south-east corner of the triangle, and its left at Columbia, the south-west corner of the figure. At the middle of the base was the village of Wartrace; and almost due west of Wartrace, but a little below the base of the triangle, was Shelbyville, where the enemy’s center was situated, behind massive fortifications. Between Shelbyville and Wartrace was massed the enemy’s infantry, the extreme wings being composed of cavalry. At a little distance north of the enemy’s front, and forming the base of the triangle, was a “range of hills, rough and rocky, through whose depressions, called gaps, the main roads to the South passed. These gaps were held by strong detachments with heavy columns within supporting distance.” Any one can see the enormous strength of the enemy’s position for defense. But it had still other sources of strength. Behind the enemy’s left and center was Duck River, a deep torrent, with tremendous banks. If they were pressed in front, the rebel army could fall back south of the river, burn the bridges, and gain ample time for retreat to the lofty range of the Cumberland Mountains, which were only a day’s march to the rear. On a direct line with Murfreesboro and Wartrace, and at the same distance south of Wartrace, as Murfreesboro was north of it, was Tullahoma, the dépôt of the enemy’s supplies, and hence the key to the situation. Posted in this almost impregnable situation, Bragg’s army was the master of Central Tennessee. It is evident that the campaign, which Garfield so powerfully urged, was a great undertaking. The narrow mountain gaps heavily fortified; behind the range of hills the great body of the rebel army intrenched in heavy fortifications; behind them the natural defense of Duck River, and still to the south, the Cumberland Mountains, formed an aggregation of obstacles almost insuperable. The plan of the campaign which followed must, in military history, be accredited to Rosecrans, because he was the General in command; but biography cares not for military custom, and names its author and originator the chief of staff. The reason Garfield urged the advance, was that he had a plan, the merits of which we will examine hereafter, by which he was convinced it might be successfully made.

There were substantially three ways by which the Union army might advance: one lay along the west side of the triangle to Columbia, there attacking the enemy’s left wing; another to march directly south to Shelbyville, and fall upon the enemy’s center; a third, to advance by two roads, cutting the base of the triangle about midway between the enemy’s center and extreme right. A fourth route was possible, along the eastern side of the triangle to McMinnville; but if the enemy’s right was to be attacked, the Manchester roads were every way preferable, as being more direct. General Garfield’s selection was the third route. His plan was to throw a heavy force forward on the road to Shelbyville, as if intending to attack the rebel center. Then, under cover of this feint, swiftly throw the bulk of the army upon the enemy’s right, turn the flank, cross Duck River, and march swiftly to the enemy’s rear, threatening his supplies, thus compelling Bragg to fall back from his tremendous stronghold at Shelbyville, and either give battle in the open country or abandon the entire region.

On the 23d of June the movement was begun by the advance of General Granger’s division toward Shelbyville. At the same time a demonstration was made toward the enemy’s left, to create the belief that feints were being made to distract the enemy’s attention from what would be supposed the main attack on Shelbyville. Meanwhile the bulk of the army was advanced along the two roads leading to the middle of the enemy’s right—the east road leading through Liberty Gap, and the west through Hoover’s Gap, a defile three miles long. On the twenty-fourth a terrible rain began, continuing day and night, for over a week. It rendered the wretched roads almost impassable, and terribly increased the difficulties of the army. The artillery sunk hub-deep in the almost bottomless mire. Great teams of twelve and fourteen powerful horses “stalled” with small field-pieces. Never a minute did the rain let up. The men’s clothing was so drenched that it was not dry for two weeks. The army wagons, hundreds in number, carrying the precious bacon and hard-tack, stuck fast on the roads. So fearful was the mire that on one day the army only advanced a mile and a-half.

But the advance was pushed as rapidly as possible. Liberty Gap and Hoover’s were both captured. The demonstrations on the enemy’s left and center were kept up with great vigor. Bragg was wholly deceived by the numerous points of attack. On the twenty-seventh the entire army was concentrated, and passed rapidly through Hoover’s Gap, and on to Manchester. While the army was concentrating at Manchester, General Thomas, on the twenty-eighth, began the final move in the game—the advance upon Tullahoma. Bragg had retreated from Shelbyville, owing to the danger which threatened his supplies. On the twenty-ninth he evacuated Tullahoma for the same reason. An attempt was made to intercept his retreat and force him to battle. But the terrible condition of the roads and rivers rendered the effort futile. Bragg crossed the Cumberland Mountains, and Central Tennessee was once more in the hands of the Union army. Had the Tullahoma campaign been begun a week earlier, before the rains set in, Bragg’s army would inevitably have been destroyed. The rebel army, of 50,000 veterans, had been driven from a natural stronghold of the most formidable character; and had lost all the fruits of a year’s victories by a single campaign of nine days, conducted in one of the most extraordinary rains ever known in Tennessee. There were 1,700 rebel prisoners taken, several parks of artillery, and an enormous amount of Confederate army stores at Tullahoma. This campaign and its victory was not the result of battle, but of pure strategy, confessedly the highest art in war.

As to whom the credit of the plan of the campaign belonged, there could be no question. As we have shown, it is impossible to separate the double star of Garfield and Rosecrans by military etiquette. But aside from the facts that the campaign was begun as a result of Garfield’s argument, in the face of unanimous opposition, the following fact is conclusive as to whom belongs the glory. On the morning of the twenty-third, when the movement was begun, General Thomas L. Crittenden, one of the corps commanders, went to head-quarters and said to General Garfield: “It is understood, sir, by the general officers of the army that this movement is your work. I wish you to understand that it is a rash and fatal move, for which you will be held responsible.”

The lips of an enemy are now made to bear unwilling testimony to the glory and the credit of the chief of staff. In his report to the War Department, just as this campaign was getting started, General Rosecrans says: “I hope it will not be considered invidious if I specially mention Brigadier-General James A. Garfield, an able soldier, zealous, devoted to duty, prudent and sagacious. I feel much indebted to him both for his counsel and assistance in the administration of this army. He possesses the instincts and energy of a great commander.”

Historians are unanimous in their opinion that the Tullahoma campaign was one of the most masterly exhibitions of strategic genius possible to the commander of a great army. Mahan, author of the Critical History of the Civil War, who is ever ready to attack and expose the blunders of the Union generals, declares that this Tullahoma campaign shows “as skillful combinations as the history of war presents.”

But the Tullahoma campaign was not the conclusion of the advance which General Garfield had so persistently urged, and the success of which had been so triumphantly demonstrated. An important line of defense had been broken through; an enormous piece of territory had been captured. But Bragg still held Chattanooga, which was the objective point of the Army of the Cumberland. In his argument of June 12, to induce an advance, Garfield had said: “While it would lengthen our communications, it would give us possession of McMinnville, and enable us to threaten Chattanooga and East Tennessee; and it would not be unreasonable to expect an early occupation of the former place.” It is yet to be seen what fulfillment there was of this prophecy.

After the Tullahoma victory, and Bragg’s retreat behind the Tennessee River, Rosecrans stopped. Again, the War Department ordered an advance. Again, the commander-in-chief refused. Again, Garfield urged that no delay take place. Rosecrans was immovable. The Department waited; the army waited; the country waited. At last the following dispatch was received:

“WASHINGTON, August 5, 1863.

“The orders for the advance of your army, and that its progress be reported daily, are peremptory.

H. W. HALLECK.”

The thing required was stupendous, but the results show it was not impossible. Sixty miles from the Union army was the Tennessee River and Cumberland Mountains. Both run from north-east to south-west. There are in these lofty mountain ranges occasional gaps, through which the great east and west traffic of the country takes place. Chattanooga, in 1863 a town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, is in the most important of these gaps—the one through which passes the Tennessee River and an important net-work of railroads. The town is right in the mountains, twenty-five hundred feet above the sea-level, and was strongly fortified, and practically impregnable to assault. Along the north-west front of the town runs the river, which would have to be crossed by the Union forces. On the southern side of the river, below Chattanooga, are three parallel ranges: Sand Mountain, Lookout Mountain, and Pigeon Ridge,—the valleys between the ridges running up to the gap at Chattanooga. North-east of the town the ridges begin again, and the general configuration of the country is similar. Chattanooga was south-east from where the Union army was situated. The town was the lock, and Bragg’s army the key, to the door to Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. To unlock this door was the task before the Army of the Cumberland.

But the problem of Rosecrans’s advance contained other complications beside the deep river, the lofty mountains, and the heavy fortifications. His army had to depend for its supplies upon Louisville, Kentucky, and the slender line of railway from that place. Every advance necessitated the weakening of his army by leaving strong detachments to preserve this communication; while, on the other hand, Bragg, already reinforced, would grow stronger all the time as he fell back on his reserves.

It is reasonable to suppose that the reason Garfield had urged the advance toward Chattanooga was that he saw a way in which it could be made. When the peremptory order came, a plan for the advance was projected, which, though vaster and more complicated than that of the Tullahoma campaign, contains the same elements, and shows itself to have been the work of the same mind. It was, indeed, a continuation of the same campaign. The plan was Rosecrans’s, because he adopted it. It was Garfield’s, because he originated it. The theory of the advance was to pass the enemy’s flank, march to his rear, threaten his line of supplies and compel him, by military strategy, to evacuate Chattanooga, as he had Shelbyville and Tullahoma. The door would thus be unlocked, and Bragg’s army driven from its last fortification to the open country. The details of the plan, as prepared by Garfield, will appear as the advance is explained. On August 16th began the movement of the army across the mountains toward the Tennessee River. The paramount effort in the manner of the advance was to deceive the enemy as to the real intention.

The army made the movement along three separate routes. Crittenden’s corps, forming the left, was to advance by a circuitous route, to a point about fifteen miles south-west of Chattanooga, and make his crossing of the Tennessee River there. Thomas, as our center, was to cross a little farther down stream, and McCook, thirty miles farther to the right. These real movements were to be made under the cover of an apparent one. About seven thousand men marched directly to the river shore, opposite Chattanooga, as if a direct attack were to be made on the place. “The extent of front presented, the show of strength, the vigorous shelling of the city by Wilder’s artillery, the bold expression of the whole movement, constituted a brilliant feint.” Bragg was deceived again. Absorbed in the operations in front of the place, he offered no resistance to the crossing of the Tennessee River by the main army.

By September 3d, the Union forces were all on the southern side of the Tennessee. Sand Mountain, the first of the ridges on that side of the river, rises abruptly from the bank. The repair and construction of roads occupied a little time; but Thomas and McCook pushed forward vigorously, and by the evening of the 6th of September had crossed Sand Mountain, and occupied the valley between it and the Lookout Range. Each of these corps had crossed the range at points opposite their crossings of the river, and, though in the same valley, were thirty-five miles apart. Crittenden, instead of crossing, turned to his left, and marched up the river bank toward Chattanooga, and crossed into the Lookout Valley by a pass near the town. On the 7th the next stage of the movement began, viz: the crossing of Lookout Range, in order to pass to the enemy’s rear, and, by endangering his supplies, compel him to abandon Chattanooga.

As soon as Bragg’s spy-glasses on Lookout Mountain, at Chattanooga, disclosed this movement, the order to evacuate the place was given. Shelbyville and Tullahoma were repeated, and on the morning of September 9th Crittenden marched in and took the place without the discharge of a gun. Strategy had again triumphed. The door was unlocked. The fall of Chattanooga was accomplished. The plan of the campaign had been carried out successfully. The North was electrified. The South utterly discomfited. Of the fall of Chattanooga, which, as we have shown, was but the continuation of the plan of the Tullahoma campaign, and was predicted by Garfield, even to the manner of its accomplishment, in his argument to Rosecrans in favor of an advance, Pollard, the Confederate historian, writes:

“Thus we were maneuvered out of this strategic stronghold. Two-thirds of our niter beds were in this region, and a large proportion of the coal which supplied our foundries. It abounded in the necessaries of life. It was one of the strongest mountain countries in the world; so full of lofty mountains that it has been not inaptly called the Switzerland of America. As the possession of Switzerland opened the door to the invasion of Italy, Germany, and France, so the possession of East Tennessee gave easy access to Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.”

It is easy to see that behind this masterly strategy there was a masterly strategist. That man was Rosecrans’s chief of staff.

What had become of Bragg’s army of fifty thousand men? Rosecrans thought it was in full retreat. Halleck, Commander-in-chief, telegraphed from Washington, on the 11th, that information had been received that Bragg’s army was being used to reinforce Lee, a certain indication of retreat. The fact was that Lee was reinforcing Bragg. Halleck also telegraphed on the same day that reinforcements were coming to Rosecrans, and that it would be decided whether he should move further into Georgia and Alabama. This telegram completed the delusion of Rosecrans. He believed Bragg was many miles to the south. The campaign planned by Garfield had been completed. But Rosecrans made a fatal blunder. Instead of marching the corps of Thomas and McCook up the Lookout Valley to Chattanooga, and uniting them with Crittenden’s, he ordered the crossing of the range as a flank movement to be continued in order to intercept Bragg’s supposed retreat. Accordingly, on the 11th and 12th, Thomas recommenced to push over Lookout Mountain through a pass, twenty-five miles south-east of Chattanooga; and thirty-five miles beyond Thomas, McCook was doing the same thing.

With the Union army thus divided, Bragg was waiting his terrible opportunity. Instead of being in full retreat, many miles away, his entire army occupied Pigeon Ridge along the valley on the southern side of Lookout Range, into which Thomas and McCook must descend from the Mountain passes. Down the center of this valley runs a little river, the CHICKAMAUGA. On the southern side of this stream, just opposite the pass from which Thomas’s corps of eighteen thousand devoted men would emerge, was concentrated the entire rebel army, waiting to destroy the isolated parts of the Army of the Cumberland in detail. The region occupied by Bragg was covered with dense forests, and he was further concealed by the low heights of Pigeon Ridge. When Thomas’s corps should have debouched from the pass through Lookout Range, and crossed the Chickamauga to ascend Pigeon Ridge, it was to be overwhelmed. Then McCook and Crittenden, sixty-five miles apart, would be separately destroyed. It fortunately happened that General Negley’s division descended from the gap on the 12th, and crossed the Chickamauga several miles in advance of the main body of Thomas’s corps. Unexpectedly, finding the enemy in great force on the opposite ridge, he swiftly withdrew, checked Thomas from further advance, and enabled the corps to take up an impregnable position in the gap through Lookout Range.

Thus foiled, Bragg then resolved to strike Crittenden, but eventually failed in this also. These failures gave the alarm. Bragg’s army was not ready for flight but for fight. It was now a matter of life and death for Rosecrans to concentrate his army before battle. Couriers were dispatched at break-neck speed to McCook, sixty-five miles away, and to Crittenden who had pushed on twenty miles beyond Chattanooga, in imaginary pursuit of Bragg. In some absolutely inexplicable way, Bragg failed for four days to make the attack. In those precious days, from September 13th to 17th, Garfield worked night and day, as chief of staff, to reach the scattered divisions, explore the shortest roads through those lofty mountains, and hasten that combination which alone could save the army from destruction. The suspense was terrible. But Bragg lost his opportunity by delaying too long. Heavy reinforcements for him were arriving, and he thought he was growing stronger. On the 17th and 18th Bragg was found to be moving his army up the valley toward Chattanooga, thus extending his right far beyond Rosecrans’s left, with the evident object of throwing his army upon the roads between the Union army and Chattanooga. To meet this, the Union army was moved in the same direction.

These movements of both armies up the valley, Bragg being south of the Chickamauga and Rosecrans north, were continued until the position was almost south of Chattanooga, instead of south-west. Parallel with our army, and immediately in its rear, were two roads leading to Chattanooga,—the one immediately in the rear known as the Lafayette or Rossville road; the other a little further back, as the Dry Valley road. At the junction of these roads, half way to Chattanooga, itself eight miles distant, was the town of Rossville. These roads were the prizes for which was to be fought one of the most bloody and awful battles of the war. The loss of either was equally fatal, but the main Rossville road, being the most exposed, was the principal object of the enemy’s attacks. The efforts of the enemy at first were to overlap or turn the left flank. This would have given them the Rossville road. Failing in this they drove the center back, the center and left turning like a door upon the hinge at the extreme left, until the line of battle was formed directly across the roads instead of parallel with them. This was accomplished during the second day’s fight.

General Thomas commanded the left wing, Crittenden the center, and McCook the right. The front of the army, facing almost east, was ranged up and down the valley from north to south, with the river in front and the roads in their rear. The whole valley was covered with dense forests, except where a farm had been made, and was full of rocky hills and ridges. So much concealed was one part of the valley from another, that the rebel army of fifty thousand men was formed in line of battle within a mile of the union lines on the same side of the river, without either army suspecting the other’s presence.

Such was the situation on the morning of September 19th, 1863. The world knows of the awful conflict which followed. General Garfield was located at Widow Glenn’s house, in the rear of the right wing. This was Rosecrans’s head-quarters. General Thomas located himself at Kelley’s farm-house in the rear of the left wing. For three nights General Garfield had not slept as many hours. Every anxious order, for the concentration of the army, had come from him; every courier and aid during those days and nights of suspense reported to him in person; before him lay his maps; each moment since the thirteenth he had known the exact position of the different corps and divisions of our vast army. Looking for the attack at any moment, it was necessary to constantly know the situation of the enemy among those gloomy mountains and sunless forests. When the red tide of battle rolled through the valley, each part of the line was ignorant of all the rest of the line. The right wing could not even guess the direction of the left wing. The surrounding forests and the hills shut in the center so completely that it did not know where either of the wings were. Every division commander simply obeyed the orders from head-quarters, took his position, and fought. The line of battle was formed in the night. To misunderstand orders and take the wrong position was easy. But so lucid were the commands, so particular the explanations which came from the man at head-quarters, that the line of battle was perfect. Many battles of the war were fought with but few orders from head-quarters; some without any concerted plan at all. Pittsburgh Landing, of the latter sort; Gettysburg, of the former sort. At Gettysburg, the commander-in-chief, General Meade, had little to do with the battle. The country was open, the enemy’s whereabouts was visible, and each division commander placed his troops just where they could do the most good. Not so at Chickamauga. No battle of the war required so many and such incessant orders from head-quarters. The only man in the Union army who knew the whole situation of our troops was General Garfield. Amid the forests, ravines and hills along the five miles of battle front, the only possible way to maintain a unity of plan and a concert of action was for the man at head-quarters to know it all. General Garfield knew the entire situation as if it had been a chess-board, and each division of the army a man. At a touch, by the player, the various brigades and divisions assumed their positions.

Every thing thus far said has been of the combatants. But there were others on the battle-field. There were the inhabitants of this valley, non-combatants, inviolate by the rules of civilized warfare. Of this sort were the rustic people at Widow Glenn’s, where General Garfield passed the most memorable days of his life. The house was a Tennessee cabin. Around it lay a little farm with small clearings. Here the widow lived with her three children, one a young man, the others a girl and boy of tender age. As General Garfield took up his head-quarters there it is said to have reminded him powerfully of his own childhood home with his toiling mother. All the life of these children had been passed in this quiet valley. Of the outside world they knew little, and cared less. They did not know the meaning of the word war. They were ignorant and poverty-stricken, but peaceful. Shut in by the mountains of ignorance, as well as the lofty ranges along the valley, they had known no event more startling than the flight of birds through the air or the rustle of the wind through the forest. The soil was rocky and barren like their minds; yet, unvisited by calamity, they were happy.

But suddenly this quiet life was broken into. The forests were filled with armed men. The cabin was taken possession of by the officers. A sentinel stood at the door. Outside stood dozens of horses, saddled and bridled. Every moment some one mounted and dashed away; every moment some other dismounted from his breathless and foam-flecked steed and rushed into the cabin. The widow, stunned and frightened, sat in the corner with an arm around each of her children. The little girl cried, but the boy’s curiosity got somewhat the better of his fear. A time or two General Garfield took the little fellow on his knee, and quieted his alarm. The fences were torn down and used for camp fires. Great trees were hastily felled for barricades. In front of the house passed and repassed bodies of troops in uniform, and with deadly rifles. Now and then a body of cavalry dashed by in a whirlwind of dust. Great cannon, black and hideous, thundered down the rocky road, shaking the solid earth in their terrible race. The cabin-yard was filled with soldiers. The well was drained dry by them to fill their canteens. It was like a nightmare to the trembling inhabitants of the cabin. Their little crops were tramped into dust by the iron tread of war. On a hill in front of the cabin, where nothing more dangerous than a plow had ever been, a battery frowned. The valley which had never been disturbed by any thing more startling than the screech of an owl, or the cackle of the barn-yard, was filled with a muffled roar from the falling trees and the shouts of men.

When morning broke on the 19th of September, 1863, on this secluded spot, the clarion of the strutting cock was supplanted by the bugle-call. The moaning of the wind through the forest was drowned in the incessant roll of the drums. The movement of troops before the cabin from right to left became more rapid. The consultations within became more eager and hurried. Mysterious notes, on slips of white paper, were incessantly written by General Garfield and handed to orderlies, who galloped away into the forest. Spread out before him, on an improvised table, lay his maps, which he constantly consulted. At one time, after a long study of the map, he said to General Rosecrans: “Thomas will have the brunt of the battle. The Rossville road must be held at all hazards.” Rosecrans replied: “It is true. Thomas must hold it, if he has to be reinforced by the entire army.” At another time, a messenger dashed into the room, and handed the chief of staff an envelope. Quietly opening it, he calmly read aloud: “Longstreet has reinforced Bragg with seventeen thousand troops from Lee’s Virginia army.”

Toward nine o’clock in the morning, the movement of troops along the road ceased. The roar in the forest subsided. No more orders were sent by General Garfield. There was suspense. It was as if every one were waiting for something. The drums no longer throbbed; the bugle-call ceased from echoing among the mountains. A half hour passed. The silence was death-like. As the sun mounted upward it seemed to cast darker shadows than usual. The house-dog gave utterance to the most plaintive howls. The chickens were gathered anxiously together under a shed, as if it were about to rain. It was. But the rain was to be red. Passing over through the forest, one saw that the troops were drawn up in lines, all with their backs toward the road and the cabin, and facing the direction of the river. That was half a mile away, but its gurgle and plashing could be easily heard in the silence. It sent a shudder through one’s frame, as if it were the gurgle and plashing of blood. The only other sound that broke the quiet was the whinnying of cavalry horses far off to the right. The dumb brutes seemed anxious, and nervously answered each other’s eager calls.

Just as the hand of the clock reached ten there was a report from a gun. It came from the extreme left, miles away. General Garfield stepped quickly to the door, and listened. There was another gun, and another, and fifty more, swelling to a roar. Turning to Rosecrans, Garfield said: “It has begun.” To which the commander replied: “Then, God help us.” Heavier and heavier became the roar. The engagement on the left was evidently becoming heavier. A quarter of an hour later messengers began to arrive. The enemy was endeavoring to turn the left-flank, but was being repulsed with heavy loss. A few moments later came the word that the enemy had captured ten pieces of artillery. The order had been given for one division of the troops to fall back. It was obeyed. But the artillerymen had been unable to move the guns back in time. The heavy undergrowth in the forest, the fallen and rotting logs, had made it slow work to drag back the ponderous cannon. The red-shirted cannoneers were still bravely working to move their battery to the rear after the line had fallen back from them a long distance. Suddenly, with a fierce yell, the rebel column poured in upon them. Guns and gunners were captured.

At 11:30 came a call from General Thomas for reinforcements. General Garfield swiftly wrote an order for divisions in the center to march to the left and reinforce General Thomas. Another courier was dispatched to the right, ordering troops to take the place of those removed from the center. At half-past twelve these movements were completed. So far, the only attack had been on the left, though the tide of battle was rolling slowly down the line. General Rosecrans and General Garfield held an earnest consultation. It was decided to order an advance on the right center, in order to prevent the enemy from concentrating his whole army against our left wing.

Before long the din of conflict could be heard opposite the cabin. The advance was being fiercely contested. Messengers one after another came asking for reinforcements. General Garfield received their messages, asked each one a question or two, turned for a few moments to his map, and then issued orders for support to the right center. As the battle raged fiercer in front of the cabin, the sounds from the extreme left grew lighter. At two o’clock they ceased altogether. The battery had been recaptured, and the enemy silenced for the time being. Meanwhile, the battle at the center became more terrible. Ambulances hurried along. Poor fellows, pale and bleeding, staggered back to the road. Occasionally a shell dropped near the cabin, exploding with frightful force. The roar was deafening. General Garfield had to shout to General Rosecrans in order to be understood. The domestic animals around the cabin were paralyzed with fright. No thunder-storm, rattling among the mountain peaks, had ever shaken the earth like the terrific roar of the shotted guns. A half mile in front of the cabin, a dense smoke rose over the tops of the trees. All day long it poured upward in black volumes. The air became stifling with a sulphurous smell of gunpowder. The messengers hurrying to and from the cabin had changed in appearance. The bright, clean uniforms of the morning were torn and muddy. Their faces were black with smoke; their eyes bloodshot with fever. Some of them came up with bleeding wounds. When General Garfield called attention to the injury, they would say: “It is only a scratch.” In the excitement of battle men receive death wounds without being conscious that they are struck. Some of the messengers sent out came back no more forever. Their horses would gallop up the road riderless. The riders had found the serenity of death. “They were asleep in the windowless palace of rest.”

It was impossible to predict the issue of the conflict in the center. At one minute, a dispatch was handed Garfield, saying that the line was broken, and the enemy pouring through. Before he had finished the reading, another message said that our troops had rallied, and were driving the enemy. This was repeated several times.

The scene of this conflict was Vineyard’s farm. It was a clearing, surrounded on all sides by the thickest woods. The troops of each army, in the alternations of advance and retreat, found friendly cover in the woods, or fatal exposure in the clearing. It was this configuration of the battle-field which caused the fluctuations of the issue. Time after time a column of blue charged across the clearing, and was driven back to rally in the sheltering forest. Time after time did the line of gray advance from the shade into the sunlight only to retire, leaving half their number stretched lifeless on the field. It was a battle within a battle. The rest of the army could hear the terrific roar, but were ignorant of the whereabouts of the conflict. The farm and the surrounding woods was a distinct battle-field. The struggle upon it, though an important element in a great battle on a vast field, was, during the later hours of its continuance, a separate battle, mapped upon the open field and forest in glaring insulation by the bodies of the slain.

Meanwhile, in hurrying reinforcements to this portion of the line of battle, a chasm was opened between the center and left. Troops were thrown forward to occupy it, but the enemy had discovered the weakness, and hurled forward heavy columns against the devoted Union lines. The struggle here was the counterpart of the one at the Vineyard farm. At the latter place the line was, at one time in the afternoon, driven back to the Lafayette road; but, towards evening, the divisions which had repulsed the attack on General Thomas’s extreme left were shifted down to the scene of these other conflicts, and the enemy was finally driven back with heavy loss.

When this was accomplished, the sun had already sunk behind the western range. Night swiftly drew her mantle over the angry field, and spread above the combatants her canopy of stars. The firing became weaker; only now and then a sullen shot was fired into the night. The first day of Chickamauga was done. In a little while ten thousand camp-fires blazed up in the forest, throwing somber shadows back of every object. At every fire could be seen the frying bacon and the steaming coffee-pot, singing as merrily as if war and battle were a thousand miles away. The men had eaten nothing since five o’clock in the morning. They had the appetites of hungry giants. Many a messmate’s place was empty. Many a corpse lay in the thicket, with a ball through the heart. But in the midst of horror the men were happy. The coffee and bacon and hard-tack tasted to the heroes like a banquet of the gods. With many a song and many a jest they finished the meal, rolled up in their blankets, and, lying down on the ground, with knapsacks for pillows, were fast asleep in the darkness. The red embers of the camp-fires gradually went out. The darkness and the silence were unbroken, save by the gleam of a star through the overarching branches, or the tramp of the watchful sentinels among the rustling leaves.

But at Widow Glenn’s cabin there was no sleep. General Garfield dispatched messengers to the different generals of the army to assemble for a council of war. It was eleven o’clock before all were present. Long and anxious was the session. The chief of staff marked out the situation of each division of the army upon his map. The losses were estimated, and the entire ground gone over. On the whole, the issue of the day had been favorable. The army having been on the defensive, might be considered so far victorious in that it had held its own. The line of battle was now continuous, and much shorter than in the morning. The general movement of troops during the day had been from right to left. The battle front was still parallel with the Chattanooga roads. General Thomas still held his own. The losses had been heavy, but not so severe as the enemy’s. But it was evident that the battle would be renewed on the morrow. The troops, already exhausted by forced marches in the effort to concentrate before attack, had all been engaged during the day. It was tolerably certain, General Garfield thought, from the reports of his scouts, that the enemy would have fresh troops to oppose to the wearied men. This would necessitate all the army being brought into action again on the next day. In case the enemy should succeed in getting the roads to Chattanooga, there was no alternative but the entire destruction of the splendid Army of the Cumberland. Still further concentration of the forces on the left, to reinforce General Thomas, was decided on. Many of the tired troops had to be roused from their sleep for this movement. There was no rest at head-quarters. When morning dawned the light still shone from the cabin window.

On the morning of September 20, 1863, a dense fog rose from the Chickamauga River, and, mixing with the smoke from the battle of the day before, filled the valley. This fact delayed the enemy’s attack. The sun rose, looking through the fog like a vast disk of blood. General Garfield noticed it, and, pointing to the phenomenon, said: “It is ominous. It will indeed be a day of blood.” By nine o’clock the fog lifted sufficiently for the attack. As on the day before, it began on the left, rolling down the line. From early morning General Thomas withstood the furious assaults of the constantly reinforced enemy. The change of the line in the night had been such that it was the right wing instead of the center which was now in front of the Widow Glenn’s. The battle was fierce and more general than the day before. The demands for reinforcements on the left came faster and faster. Division after division was moved to the left. In the midst of a battle these movements are dangerous. A single order, given from head-quarters without a perfect comprehension of the situation of the troops, a single ambiguous phrase, a single erroneous punctuation mark in the hastily-written dispatch, may cost thousands of lives in a few minutes. In a battle like Chickamauga, where the only unity possible is by perfect and swift obedience to the commands from head-quarters, a single misunderstood sentence may change the destiny of empires.

The information received at Widow Glenn’s up to ten o’clock of the 20th showed that the troops, though wearied, were holding their own. Up to this time General Garfield, appreciating each emergency as it occurred, had directed every movement, and written every order during the battle. Not a blunder had occurred. His clear, unmistakable English, had not a doubtful phrase or a misplaced comma. Every officer had understood and executed just what was expected of him. The fury of the storm had so far spent itself in vain.

At half-past ten, an aid galloped up to the cabin and informed General Rosecrans that there was a chasm in the center, between the divisions of General Reynolds on the left and General Wood on the right. Unfortunate moment! Cruel fate! In a moment a blunder was committed which was almost to destroy our heroic army. In the excitement of the crisis, Rosecrans varied from his custom of consulting the chief of staff. General Garfield was deeply engaged at another matter. Rosecrans called another aid to write an order instantly directing Wood to close the gap by moving to his left. Here is the document as it was dashed down at that memorable and awful moment:

“HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF CUMBERLAND, } “September 20th—10.45 A. M. }

“Brigadier-General Wood, Commanding Division:

“The general commanding directs that you close up on Reynolds as fast as possible, and support him. Respectfully, etc.,

“FRANK S. BOND, Major and Aid-de-camp.”

Had General Garfield been consulted that order would never have been written. Wood was not next to Reynolds. General Brannan’s division was in the line between them. Brannan’s force stood back from the line somewhat. The aid, galloping rapidly over the field, did not know that a little farther back in the forest stood Brannan’s division. It looked to him like a break in the line. General Rosecrans was either ignorant, or forgot that Brannan was there. General Garfield alone knew the situation of every division on the battle-field. This fatal order was the only one of the entire battle which he did not write himself. On receipt of the order, General Wood was confused. He could not close up on Reynolds because Brannan was in the way. Supposing, however, from the words of the order, that Reynolds was heavily pressed, and that the intention was to reinforce him, and knowing the extreme importance of obeying orders from head-quarters, in order to prevent the army from getting inextricably tangled in the forest, he promptly marched his division backward, passed to the rear of Brannan, and thus to the rear of and support of Reynolds.

The fatal withdrawal of Wood from the line of battle was simultaneous with a Confederate advance. Failing in his desperate and bloody attacks upon the left, Bragg ordered an advance all along the line. Right opposite the chasm left by Wood was Longstreet, the most desperate fighter of the Confederacy, with seventeen thousand veteran troops from Lee’s army. Formed in solid column, three-quarters of a mile long, on they came right at the gap. Two brigades of Federal troops, under General Lytle, reached the space first, but were instantly ground to powder beneath this tremendous ram. Right through the gap came the wedge, splitting the Union army in two. In fifteen minutes the entire right wing was a rout. One-half the army was in a dead run toward Rossville. Guns, knapsacks, blankets, whatever could impede them, was hastily thrown away.

So sudden was the rout that the stream of fugitives, swarming back from the woods, was the first information received at Widow Glenn’s that the line had been pierced. There was no time to be lost. Behind the fleeing troops came the iron columns of the enemy. In five minutes more the cabin would be in their hands. Hastily gathering his precious maps, Garfield followed Rosecrans on horseback, over to the Dry Valley road. Here General Garfield dismounted, and exerted all his powers to stem the tide of retreat. Snatching a flag from a flying color-bearer, he shouted at the deaf ears of the mob. Seizing men by their shoulders he would turn them around, and then grasp others to try and form a nucleus to resist the flood. It was useless. The moment he took his hands off of a man he would run.

Rejoining Rosecrans, who believed that the entire army was routed, the commander said: “Garfield, what can be done?” Undismayed by the panic-stricken army crowding past him, which is said to be the most demoralizing and unnerving sight on earth, Garfield calmly said, “One of us should go to Chattanooga, secure the bridges in case of total defeat, and collect the fragments of the army on a new line. The other should make his way, if possible, to Thomas, explain the situation, and tell him to hold his ground at any cost, until the army can be rallied at Chattanooga.” “Which will you do?” asked Rosecrans. “Let me go to the front,” was General Garfield’s instant reply. “It is dangerous,” said he, “but the army and country can better afford for me to be killed than for you.” They dismounted for a hurried consultation. With ear on the ground, they anxiously listened to the sound of Thomas’s guns. “It is no use,” said Rosecrans. “The fire is broken and irregular. Thomas is driven. Let us both hurry to Chattanooga, to save what can be saved.” But General Garfield had a better ear. “You are mistaken. The fire is still in regular volleys. Thomas holds his own, and must be informed of the situation. Send orders to Sheridan, and the other commanders of the right wing, to collect the fragments of their commands and move them through Rossville, and back on the Lafayette road, to Thomas’s support.” There were a few more hurried words; then a grasp of the hand and the commander and his chief of staff separated, the one to go to the rear, the other to the front. Rosecrans has said that he felt Garfield would never come back again.

Then began that world-famous ride. No one knew the situation of the troops, the cause of the disaster, and the way to retrieve it like the chief of staff. To convey that priceless information to Thomas, Garfield determined to do or to die. He was accompanied by Captain Gano, who had come from General Thomas before the disaster, and knew how to reach him; besides these two, each officer had an orderly. On they galloped up the Dry Valley road, parallel with, but two miles back of, the morning’s line of battle. After reaching a point opposite the left wing, they expected to cross to General Thomas. But Longstreet’s column, after passing the Union center, had turned to its right at Widow Glenn’s, to march to the rear of General Thomas, and thus destroy that part of the army which still stood fighting the foe in its face. The course of Longstreet was thus parallel with the road along which Garfield galloped. At every effort to cross to the front he found the enemy between him and General Thomas.

It was a race between the rebel column and the noble steed on which Garfield rode. Up and down along the stony valley road, sparks flying from the horse’s heels, two of the party hatless, and all breathless, without delay or doubt on dashed the heroes. Still the enemy was between them and Thomas. They were compelled to go almost to Rossville. At last General Garfield said: “We must try to cross now or never. In a half hour it will be too late for us to do any good.” Turning sharply to their right, they found themselves in a dark-tangled forest. They were scratched and bleeding from the brier thickets and the overhanging branches. But not a rider checked his horse. General Garfield’s horse seemed to catch the spirit of the race. Over ravines and fences, through an almost impenetrable undergrowth, sometimes through a marsh, and then over broken rocks, the smoking steed plunged without a quiver.

Suddenly they came upon a cabin, a Confederate pest-house. A crowd of unfortunates, in various stages of the small-pox, were sitting and lying about the lonely and avoided place. The other riders spurred on their way, but General Garfield reined in sharply, and, calling in a kind tone to the strongest of the wrecks, asked, “Can I do any thing for you, my poor fellow?” In an instant the man gasped out, “Do not come near. It is small-pox. But for God’s sake give us money to buy food.” Quick as thought the great-hearted chief of staff drew out his purse and tossed it to the man, and with a rapid but cheerful “good-bye” spurred after his companions. Crashing, tearing, plunging, rearing through the forest dashed the steed. Poet’s song could not be long to celebrate that daring deed.

Twice they stopped. They were on dangerous ground. At any moment they might come upon the enemy. They were right on the ground for which Longstreet’s column was headed. Which would get there first? A third time they stopped. The roar of battle was very near. They were in the greatest peril. Utterly ignorant of the course of events, since he had been driven from Widow Glenn’s, General Garfield did not know but what the rebel column had passed completely to Thomas’s rear and lay directly in front of them. They changed their course slightly to the left. Of his own danger Garfield never thought. The great fear in his mind was that he would fail to reach Thomas, with the order to take command of all the forces, and with the previous information of the necessity of a change of front. At last they reached a cotton field. If the enemy was near, it was almost certain death. Suddenly a rifle-ball whizzed past Garfield’s face. Turning in his saddle he saw the fence on the right glittering with murderous rifles. A second later a shower of balls rattled around the little party. Garfield shouted, “Scatter, gentlemen, scatter,” and wheeled abruptly to the left. Along that side of the field was a ridge. If it could be reached, they were safe. The two orderlies never reached it. Captain Gano’s horse was shot through the lungs, and his own leg broken by the fall. Garfield was now the single target for the enemy. His own horse received two balls, but the noble animal kept straight on at its terrific speed. General Garfield speaking of it afterwards said that his thought was divided between poor Thomas and his young wife and child in the little home at Hiram. With a few more leaps he gained the ridge, unhurt. Captain Gano painfully crawling on the ground finally gained the ridge himself.

General Thomas was still a mile away. In ten minutes Garfield was at his side, hurriedly explaining the catastrophe at noon. They stood on a knoll overlooking the field of battle. The horse which had borne Garfield on his memorable ride, dropped dead at his feet while the chief of staff told Thomas the situation. There was no time to be lost. Hurrying down to his right, General Thomas found that a considerable portion of the center had swung around like a door to oppose Longstreet’s advance. For an hour or more his columns had flung themselves with desperate fury on this line so unexpectedly opposed to them. Hour after hour these lines had held him at bay. The slaughter was terrible. But this could not last. There was no uniform plan in this accidental battle front. There were great chasms in it. The Confederate forces were diverging to their left toward the Dry Valley road, and would soon flank this line. But Thomas was a great commander. Without a moment’s delay his line of battle was withdrawn to a ridge in the form of a horse-shoe. The main front was now at right angles with that of the morning; that is, it lay across the Rossville road instead of parallel with it. Thomas’s troops were now arranged in a three-quarter circle. They scarcely numbered twenty-five thousand. Around this circle, as around a little island, like an ocean of fire, raged a Confederate army of sixty thousand troops. Overwhelmed by numbers, General Thomas still held the horse-shoe ridge, through which lay the Rossville road. The storm of battle raged with fearful power. The line of heroes seemed again and again about to be swallowed up in the encircling fire. Again and again Longstreet’s troops charged with unexampled impetuosity, and as many times were beaten back bruised and bleeding. The crisis of the battle at half past four in the afternoon, when Longstreet hurled forward his magnificent reserve corps, is said to have rivaled, in tragic importance and far-reaching consequences, the supreme moment in the battle of Gettysburg, when Pickett’s ten thousand Virginians, in solid column, charged upon Cemetery Ridge.

But all the valor and all the fury was in vain. “George A. Thomas,” in the words of Garfield, “was indeed the ‘rock of Chickamauga,’ against which the wild waves of battle dashed in vain.”

General Garfield, from the moment of his arrival, had plunged into the thickest of the fray. When at last the thinned and shattered lines of gray withdrew, leaving thousands of their dead upon the bloody field, smoked and powder-grimed, he was personally managing a battery of which the chief gunners had been killed at their post. Towards the close of the fight Thomas’s ammunition ran very low. His ammunition trains had become involved with the rout of the right, and were miles in the rear at Rossville. This want of ammunition created more fear than the assaults of the enemy. The last charge was repelled at portions of the line with the bayonet alone.

But the hard-earned victory was won. The Rossville road was still held. The masterly skill and coolness of Thomas, when General Garfield reached him with information as to the rest of the army, which, it must be remembered, was never visible through the dense forests and jagged ridges of the valley, had saved the Army of the Cumberland from destruction. After night the exhausted men withdrew to Rossville and subsequently to Chattanooga.

A great battle is a memorable experience to one who takes part. There is nothing like it on earth. Henceforth the participant is different from other men. All his preceding life becomes small and forgotten after such days as those of Chickamauga. From that day he feels that he began to live. When the flames of frenzy with which he was possessed subside, they have left their mark on his being. Ordinarily the flames of battle have burnt out many sympathies. His nature stands like a forest of charred and blackened trunks, once green and beautiful, waving in their leafy splendor, but through which the destroying tempest of fire has passed in its mad career of vengeance. He can neither forget nor forgive the murderous foe. Before the battle he might have exchanged tobacco plugs with the man with whom he would have, with equal readiness, exchanged shots. But after the carnage of the battle, after the day of blood and fury, all this is passed. The last gun is fired on the field of battle. The last shattered line of heroes withdraws into the night. The earth has received its last baptism of blood for the time-being. Only burial parties, with white flags, may be seen picking their way among the fallen brave. The actual battle is over forever. Not so is it with the combatant. In his mind the battle goes on and on. He is perpetually training masked batteries on the foe. The roar of conflict never ceases to reverberate in his brain. Throughout his life, whenever recalled to the subject of the war, his mental attitude is that of the battle-field. In his thought the columns are still charging up the hill. The earth still shakes with an artillery that is never silenced. The air is still sulphurous with gunpowder smoke. The ranks of the brave and true still fall around him. Forever is he mentally loading and firing; forever charging bayonets across the bloody field; forever burying the fallen heroes under the protection of the flag of truce.

This is the law of ordinary minds. The red panorama of the Gettysburg and the Chickamauga is forever moving before his eyes. The wrench or strain given to his mental being by those days is too terrific, too awful, for any reaction in the average mind. This fact has been abundantly proven in the history of the last twenty years. Chickamauga thus became a new birth to many a soldier. His life, henceforward, seemed to date from the 19th of September, 1863. His life was ever afterward marked off by anniversaries of that day. It is found that many soldiers die on the anniversary of some great battle in which they were participants. Such is the influence mental states bear upon the physical organism.

Chickamauga was all this to General Garfield. It was more than this to him. He was not merely a participant in the battle of bullets. He was also in the battle of brains. The field soldier certainly feels enough anxiety. His mental experience has enough of torture to gratify the monarch of hell himself. But the anxieties of the man at head-quarters are unspeakable. He sees not merely the actual horrors and the individual danger. He carries on his heart the responsibility for an army. He is responsible for the thousands of lives. A single mistake, a single blunder, a single defective plan, will forever desolate unnumbered firesides. More than this he feels. Not only the fate of the army, but the fate of the country rests in his hand. The burden is crushing. It may be said this is only upon the Commander-in-chief. But General Garfield, as chief of staff, we have seen, was no figure-head, no amanuensis. He took the responsibilities of that campaign and battle to his own heart. At every step his genius grappled with the situation. Rosecrans was a good soldier; but in nothing was his ability so exhibited as in selecting Garfield for his confidential adviser and trusting so fully to his genius.

Thus the battle of Chickamauga entered into Garfield’s mental experience in its greatest aspects. His profoundly sympathetic nature was subjected to an incalculable strain. The struggle of the first day, the beginning of the second, the fatal order, the appalling catastrophe, the fearful ride, the invincible courage of Thomas, the costly victory, all these things were incorporated into his life. He lived years in a single hour. He was only thirty-one years old. It was only nine years since the boys at Williams College had laughed at him as a green-horn; only seven years since he had graduated. But the education of Chickamauga gave him age. The maturity of the mind is not measured by time, but by experience. Previous to the Chattanooga campaign, General Garfield was a clever man. After the battle of Chickamauga he was a great man.

Of the general results of the battle, we quote from Van Horn’s magnificent but critical History of the Army of the Cumberland: “Whatever were the immediate and more local consequences of the battle, in its remote relations and significance, it has claims to historic grandeur. The Army of the Cumberland, without support on either flank, had leaped across the Tennessee River and the contiguous mountains, and yet escaped destruction, though the armies of the enemy, east and west, were made tributary to a combination of forces to accomplish this end. Paroled prisoners from Vicksburg, regular troops from Mississippi and Georgia, a veteran corps from Lee’s army in Virginia, and Buckner’s corps from East Tennessee, joined Bragg on the banks of the Chickamauga, not simply to retake Chattanooga, but to annihilate the Army of the Cumberland. Nearly half of Bragg’s army consisted of recent reinforcements, sent to Northern Georgia while the authorities at Washington, perplexed with the military situation, were resting under the delusion that General Bragg was reinforcing Lee. But this heavy draft upon the resources of the Confederacy was burdened with the fatality which clung to all the grander efforts of the insurgents in the west. And General Bragg’s broken and exhausted army was a symbol of the fast-coming exhaustion of the Confederacy itself. The issue of the battle was not thus defined to the consciousness of the Southern people, but was, doubtless, one of the most emphatic disappointments of the struggle, and intensified the gloom produced by previous defeats.”

In his report of the battle to the Department of War, General Rosecrans said:

“To Brigadier-General James A. Garfield, chief of staff, I am especially indebted for the clear and ready manner in which he seized the points of action and movement, and expressed in orders the ideas of the general commanding.”

In relating the history of General Garfield’s military career, no mention has been made of a fact which was destined to affect his future. In the fall of 1862, he had been nominated and elected to Congress from his own district. The thing had been accomplished in his absence, and almost without his knowledge. His term did not begin till December, 1863, and his constituents supposed the war would be over before that time. Garfield himself looked at the thing with indifference. It did not interfere with his service in the army, could not do so for a long time, and there was nothing to hurry his decision in the matter. After the Tullahoma campaign, in the summer of 1863, when he had had a taste of successful military strategy, the Congressional question began to force itself to the surface of his thought. There was no prospect of peace. All his inclinations persuaded him to remain in the army. But Congress met in December, and he would have to decide.

In this frame of mind, he had a long confidential talk with Rosecrans on the subject. Rosecrans told him he ought to enter Congress.

“I am glad for your sake,” said Rosecrans, “that you have a new distinction, and I certainly think you can accept it with honor; and, what is more, I deem it your duty to do so. The war is not over yet, nor will it be for some time to come. There will be, of necessity, many questions arising in Congress which will require not alone statesman-like treatment, but the advice of men having an acquaintance with military affairs. For this, and other reasons, I believe you will be able to do equally good service to your country in Congress as in the field.”

Still General Garfield was undecided, except on one thing: that was to wait. Meantime the Chattanooga campaign came on, terminating at Chickamauga. Garfield was consumed with military zeal. He could hardly bear to think of chaining himself up to a desk for the monotonous sessions of Congress. All the military spirit which had blazed in his ancestors reasserted itself in him. His mind was absorbed with the stupendous problems of war which the Rebellion presented. Recognizing within himself an ability superior to many around and above him for grappling with questions of strategy, he was loath to abandon its exercise. It was evident, too, that in the presence of the commanding proportions of the military fame of successful Union generals, any merely Congressional reputation would be dwarfed and overshadowed.

On the other hand, his brother officers urged him to go to Congress. There was a painful need of military men there. The enormous necessities of the army seemed too great to be comprehended by civilians. All men of soldierly instincts and abilities were at the front, and there was danger that the fountain of supplies in the Lower House of Congress would dry up.

In the midst of these doubts, two weeks after the battle of Chickamauga, he was summoned to Washington. The War Department demanded a full explanation of the battle which had cost so many thousand lives. Garfield was known at Washington, and they determined to have from him the complete history of the campaign, and an explanation of the necessities of the situation.

On his way to the Capital he, of course, went by the vine-covered cottage at Hiram. After the carnage and havoc of war, the peaceful fireside seemed a thousand times more dear than ever, worth all the blood and all the tears that were being shed for it. During his brief stay at home, his first born, “Little Trot,” only three years of age, was seized with a fatal illness, and carried to the quiet village cemetery. Oppressed with the private as well as the public sorrow, he continued on his journey to Washington. In New York City he staid over night with an old college friend, Henry E. Knox. Again he talked over the Congressional question in all its bearings. The conversation lasted far into the night. The friend knew the feeling of the country; he knew the need for military men in Congress, and he was well acquainted with Garfield’s ability. His advice to General Garfield was to accept the Congressional seat as a public duty.

But never was a man so unwilling to accept a place in Congress. General Garfield felt that he had a career before him if he remained in the army, and he wanted to do so. At last he agreed to submit the question to Mr. Lincoln. “I will lay it before him when I reach Washington, and let his decision settle the matter,” said he. Garfield felt that his mission to the Capital was to save Rosecrans. When he called on Secretary Stanton, he was notified of his promotion to the rank of major-general, “for gallant and meritorious services at Chickamauga.” This added further complexity to the Congressional question. Every detail of the movements of the Army of the Cumberland was gone through with by him before the War Department. With the aid of maps he made an elaborate presentation of the facts, from the long delay at Murfreesboro clear through the Tullahoma and Chattanooga campaigns. His exposé was masterly. Every thing he could do was done to save his chief. Montgomery Blair, one of the ablest men at the Capital, after listening to General Garfield’s presentation of the facts, said to a friend, “Garfield is a great man.” President Lincoln said: “I have never understood so fully and clearly the necessities, situation, and movements of any army in the field.”

But it was in vain. Stanton was firm. Rosecrans had to go. His obstinate refusals to advance from Murfreesboro; his testy and almost insulting letters; his violent temper, and uncontrollable stubbornness had ruined him long before Chickamauga. He had broken with the Commander-in-chief as well as with Secretary Stanton. He had said that he regarded certain suggestions from the Department “as a profound, grievous, cruel, and ungenerous official and personal wrong.” The powerful enemies which he thus made only waited for an opportunity to destroy him. That opportunity came with the fatal order at Chickamauga, the rout of the right wing, the loss of presence of mind, and the ride to the rear. This last stood in painful contrast with General Garfield’s dangerous and heroic ride to the front. It was admitted that the strategy of the campaigns was splendid, Napoleonic. It could not be denied that the mistake as to the enemy’s whereabouts after the evacuation of Chattanooga originated in the dispatches from Washington. No matter. Rosecrans was relieved, and the chief of staff, whom Stanton correctly believed to have been very largely the originator of the strategic advance, was promoted.

His immediate duty at Washington being discharged, General Garfield laid the question of the seat in Congress before the man who, perhaps, felt more sympathy and appreciation for and with him than any other, because, like himself, Garfield sprang from poverty, Abraham Lincoln. The great, grave President thought it over, and finally said:

“The Republican majority in Congress is very small, and it is often doubtful whether we can carry the necessary war measures; and, besides, we are greatly lacking in men of military experience in the House to regulate legislation about the army. It is your duty, therefore, to enter Congress, at any rate for the present.”

This, for the time being, settled the matter. With the understanding that his rank would be restored if he desired to return to the army, General Garfield reluctantly resigned his new major-generalship, a position whose salary was double that of a Congressman, in order to enter on the following day the House of Representatives.

The greatest men seem often to have been those who were suddenly lifted out of the career of life which they had chosen, and to which they seemed to be preëminently adapted, and forced, as it were, by the exigencies of the times, into a new channel. Julius Cæsar, whose lofty character, unapproachable genius, and sorrowful death, are hardly equalled in the annals of any age or country, had chosen for himself the career of a civil and religious officer of state. His chosen field was in the stately sessions of the Roman Senate, or before the turbulent multitudes of the forum. It was said of him by his enemies, that in speaking he excelled those who practiced no other art. It was said that, had he continued in his chosen career, he would have outshone, in his eloquence, every orator whose name and fame has been transmitted by Rome to later generations. But from this career he was unexpectedly taken. The dangers to the state from the Gallic tribes, and the restless Roman appetite for conquest, required a military leader. Almost by accident Cæsar was drawn away from the senate and the forum to take up the profession of arms.

Unlike the great Roman, Garfield, under the stress of public necessity, was almost by accident withdrawn from the career of arms, in which it may be truly said of him that he, too, excelled those who practiced no other art, to enter upon the career of a legislator. Cæsar exchanged the assembly for the camp, while the great American left the camp for the assembly. Each did so at the call of the state, and each was to become, in his new field, the master spirit of his generation.

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