Alger Horatio Jr.
From Canal Boy to President; Or, the Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield
Chapter XXI—A Difficult Duty
Having made up his mind to serve his country in the field, Garfield immediately wrote to the Governor accepting the appointment.
The regiment to which he was assigned was recruited from the same counties which he represented in the State Senate. A large number of the officers and privates had been connected as students with Hiram College, and were personally known to Garfield.
His first step was to qualify himself for his new position. Of the art and mystery of war the young scholar knew little, but he was no worse off than many another whom the exigencies of his country summoned from peaceful pursuits to the tented field and the toilsome march. It was probably the only office which he ever assumed without suitable qualifications. But it was not in his nature to undertake any duties without endeavoring to fit himself for their discharge.
His method of studying the art of war was curious and original. Falling back on his old trade of carpenter, he brought "his saw and jack-plane again into play, fashioned companies, officers and non-commissioned officers out of maple blocks, and with these wooden-headed troops he thoroughly mastered the infantry tactics in his quarters." There was this advantage in his method, that his toy troops were thoroughly manageable.
The next step was to organize a school for the officers of his regiment, requiring thorough recitation in the tactics, while their teacher illustrated the maneuvers by the blocks he had prepared for his own instruction. He was obliged to begin with the officers, that they might be qualified to assist him in instructing the men under their command. He was then able to institute regimental, squad, skirmish, and bayonet drill, and kept his men at these exercises from six to eight hours daily till the Forty-second won the reputation of being the best drilled regiment to be found in Ohio.
My boy readers will be reminded of the way in which he taught geometry in one of his winter schools, preparing himself at night for the lesson of the next day. I would like to call their attention also to the thoroughness with which he did everything. Though previously ignorant of military tactics he instructed his regiment in them thoroughly, believing that whatever was worth doing at all was worth doing well.
He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel, but by the time his organization was completed he was promoted to the Colonelcy.
At last the preliminary work was completed. His men, an undisciplined body when he took them in hand, had become trained soldiers, but as yet they had not received what Napoleon III. called the "baptism of fire." It is all very well to march and countermarch, and practice the ordinary evolutions like militia-men at a muster, but how was the regiment, how was its scholarly commander likely to act in the field?
On the 14th of December orders for the field were received by Colonel Garfield's command, stationed at Camp Chase.
Then came the trial of parting with wife and mother and going forth to battle and danger. To his mother, whose highest ambition had been that her son should be a scholar, it was doubtless a keen disappointment that his settled prospects should be so broken up; but she, too, was patriotic, and she quietly said: "Go, my son, your life belongs to your country."
Colonel Garfield's orders were to report to General Buell at Louisville. He moved his regiment by way of Cincinnati to Catlettsburg, Kentucky, a town at the junction of the Big Sandy and the Ohio, and was enabled to report to his commander on the 19th of December.
Then, for the first time, he learned what was the nature of the duty that was assigned to him. It was no less than to save Kentucky to the Union. A border State, with an interest in slavery, public opinion was divided, and it was uncertain to which side it would incline. The Confederates understood the value of the prize, and they had taken measures, which promised to be successful, to wrest it from the Union. The task had been committed to Gen. Humphrey Marshall, who had invaded Eastern Kentucky from the Virginia border, and had already advanced as far north as Prestonburg.
Gen. Marshall fortified a strong natural position near Paintville, and overran the whole Piedmont region. This region contained few slaves—but one in twenty-five of the whole population. It was inhabited by a brave rural population, more closely resembling their Northern than their Southern neighbors. Among these people Marshall sent stump orators to fire them with enthusiasm for the Confederate cause. Such men would make valuable soldiers and must be won over if possible.
So all that portion of the State was in a ferment. It looked as if it would be lost to the Union. Marshall was daily increasing the number of his forces, preparing either to intercept Buell, and prevent his advance into Tennessee, or, cutting off his communications, with the assistance of Beauregard, to crush him between them.
To Colonel Garfield, an inexperienced civilian, who had only studied military tactics by the aid of wooden blocks, and who had never been under fire, it was proposed to meet Marshall, a trained soldier, to check his advance, and drive him from the State. This would have been formidable enough if he had been provided with an equal number of soldiers; but this was far from being the case. He had but twenty-five hundred men to aid him in his difficult work, and of these eleven hundred, under Colonel Craven, were a hundred miles away, at Paris, Kentucky, and this hundred miles was no level plain, but a rough, mountainous country, infested with guerrillas and occupied by a disloyal people.
Of course, the first thing to be done was to connect with Colonel Craven, but, considering the distance and the nature of the country to be traversed, it was a most difficult problem. The chances were that Gen. Marshall, with his vastly superior force, would attack the two bodies of soldiers separately, and crush them before a union could be effected.
Gen. Buell explained how matters stood to the young colonel of volunteers, and ended thus:
"That is what you have to do, Colonel Garfield—drive Marshall from Kentucky, and you see how much depends on your action. Now go to your quarters, think of it overnight, and come here in the morning and tell me how you will do it."
In college Garfield had been called upon to solve many difficult problems in the higher mathematics, but it is doubtful whether he ever encountered a more knotty problem than this one.
He and Colonel Craven represented two little boys of feeble strength, unable to combine their efforts, who were called upon to oppose and capture a big boy of twice their size, who knew a good deal more about fighting than they did.
No wonder the young colonel felt perplexed. But he did not give up. It was not his way. He resolved to consider whether anything could be done, and what.
My chief object in writing this volume being to commend its subject as an example for boys, I think it right to call attention to this trait which he possessed in a conspicuous degree. Brought face to face with difficulty—with what might almost be called the impossible, he did not say, "Oh, I can't do it. It is impossible." He went home to devise a plan.
First of all, it was important that he should know something of the intervening country—its conformation, its rivers and streams, if there were any. So, on his way to his room he sought a book-store and bought a rude map of Kentucky, and then, shutting himself up in his room, while others were asleep, he devoted himself to a lesson in geography. With more care than he had ever used in school, he familiarized himself with the geography of the country in which he was to operate, and then set himself to devise some feasible plan of campaign.
It was a hard problem, and required still more anxious thought, because the general to whom he was to report it, was, unlike himself, a man thoroughly trained in the art of war.
The next morning, according to orders, he sought again his commanding officer.
Gen. Buell was a man of great reticence and severe military habits, and if the plan were weak or foolish, as might well be from the utter lack of experience of the young officer who was to make it, he would unhesitatingly say so.
As Garfield laid his rude map and roughly outlined plan on the table, and explained his conception of the campaign, he watched anxiously to see how Gen. Buell was impressed by it. But the general was a man who knew how to veil his thoughts. He waited in silence till Garfield had finished, only asking a brief question now and then, and at the end, without expressing his opinion one way or the other, merely said: "Colonel Garfield, your orders will be sent you at six o'clock this evening."
Garfield was not compelled to wait beyond that hour.
Promptly the order came, organizing the Eighteenth Brigade of the Army of the Ohio, under the command of Colonel Garfield, with a letter of instructions, embodying essentially the plan submitted by the young officer in the morning.
When Garfield set out with his command the next morning, Gen. Buell said to him at parting:
"Colonel, you will be at so great a distance from me, and communication will be so difficult, that I must commit all matters of detail and much of the fate of the campaign to your discretion. I shall hope to hear a good account of you."
Chapter XXII—John Jordan's Dangerous Journey
Col. Garfield had already sent on his regiment in advance to Louisa, twenty-eight miles up the Big Sandy.
There he joined them on the 24th, having waited at Catlettsburg only long enough to forward to them necessary supplies.
The arrival of the regiment was opportune, for the district was thoroughly alarmed. A regiment had been stationed there—the Fourteenth Kentucky—but had hastily retreated to the mouth of the river during the night of the 19th, under the impression that Marshall was advancing with his forces to drive them into the Ohio. It was a false alarm, but the Union citizens were very much alarmed, and were preparing with their families to cross the river for safety. With the appearance of Garfield's regiment a feeling of security returned.
I am anxious to make plain to my boy readers the manner in which the young colonel managed his campaign. I think they will have no difficulty in understanding that Garfield had two very difficult things to accomplish. Colonel Craven knew nothing of Garfield's advance, nor of his plans. It was necessary to inform him. Again, if possible, a junction must be effected. The first was difficult, because the intervening country was infested with roving bands of guerrillas, and a messenger must take his life in his hands. How, again, could a junction be effected in the face of a superior enemy, liable to fall upon either column and crush it?
Obviously the first thing was to find a messenger.
Garfield applied to Col. Moore of the Fourteenth Kentucky, and made known his need.
"Have you a man," he asked, "who will die rather than fail or betray us?"
"Yes," answered the Kentuckian, after a pause, "I think I have. His name is John Jordan, and he comes from the head of the Blaine."
This was a small stream which entered the Big Sandy, a short distance from the town.
At the request of Garfield, Jordan was sent for. In a short time he entered the tent of the Union commander.
This John Jordan was a remarkable man, and well known in all that region. He was of Scotch descent, and possessed some of the best traits of his Scotch ancestry. He was a born actor, a man of undoubted courage, fertile in expedients, and devoted to the Union cause.
Garfield was a judge of men, and he was impressed in the man's favor at first sight. He describes Jordan as a tall, gaunt, sallow man, about thirty years of age, with gray eyes, a fine falsetto voice, and a face of wonderful expressiveness. To the young colonel he was a new type of man, but withal a man whom he was convinced that he could trust.
"Why did you come into this war?" he asked, with some curiosity.
"To do my share, colonel, and I've made a bargain with the Lord. I gave Him my life to start with, and if He has a mind to take it, it's His. I've nothing to say agin it."
"You mean you have come into the war, not expecting to get out of it alive?"
"Yes, colonel."
"You know what I want you to do. Will you die rather than let this dispatch be taken?"
"I will."
Garfield looked into the man's face, and he read unmistakable sincerity.
He felt that the man could be trusted, and he said so.
The dispatch was written upon tissue paper. It was then rolled into the form of a bullet, coated with warm lead, and given into the hands of the messenger. He was provided with a carbine and a brace of revolvers, and when the moon was down, he mounted his horse in the darkness and set out on his perilous journey.
It would not do to ride in the daytime, for inevitably he would be stopped, or shot down. By day he must hide in the woods, and travel only at night.
His danger was increased by the treachery of one of his own comrades of the Fourteenth Kentucky, and he was followed by a band of guerrillas in the Confederate interest. Of this, however, Jordan was not apprised, and supposing himself secure he sought shelter and concealment at the house of a man whom he knew to be loyal. Near enough to see, but not to be seen, the guerrillas waited till the tired messenger was sleeping, and then coming boldly out of the woods, surrounded the house.
In a fright the good housewife ran up to his chamber, and shook the sleeping man.
"Wake for your life!" she said. "The guerrillas are outside, clamoring for you. I have locked the doors, but I can not keep them out long."
Jordan had thrown himself on the bed with his clothes on. He knew that he was liable to be surprised, and in such an event time was most valuable. Though awakened from a sound sleep, he had all his wits about him.
"Thank you," said he. "I have a favor to ask in the name of our cause."
"Be quick, then," said the woman. "They are bursting open the door."
"Take this bullet. It contains a secret dispatch, which, if I am killed, I enjoin upon you to convey to Colonel Craven, at Paris. Will you do it?"
"If I can."
"Then I am off."
The door burst open, but he made a sudden dash, and escaped capture. He headed for the woods, amid a volley of bullets, but none of them reached him. Once he turned round, and fired an answering shot. He did not stop to see if it took effect, but it was the messenger of Death. One of the guerrillas reeled, and measured his length upon the ground, dead in a moment.
Fleet as a deer the brave scout pushed on till he got within the protecting shadows of the friendly woods. There they lost the trail, and though he saw them from his place of concealment, he was himself unseen.
"Curse him!" said the disappointed leader. "He must have sunk into the earth, or vanished into the air."
"If he's sunk into the earth, that is where we want him," answered another, with grim humor.
"You will find I am not dead yet!" said the hidden scout to himself. "I shall live to trouble you yet."
He passed the remainder of the day in the woods, fearing that his pursuers might still be lingering about.
"If there were only two or three, I'd come out and face 'em," he said, "but the odds are too great. I must skulk back in the darkness, and get back the bullet."
Night came on, and the woman who had saved him, heard a low tapping at the door. It might be an enemy, and she advanced, and opened it with caution. A figure, seen indistinctly in the darkness, stood before her.
"Who are you?" she asked doubtfully.
"Don't be afraid, ma'am, it's only me."
"And you—"
"Are the man you saved this morning!"
"God be thanked! Then you were not killed?"
"Do I look like a dead man? No, my time hasn't come yet. I foiled 'em in the wood, and there I have spent all day. Have you any victuals, for I am famished?"
"Yes, come in."
"I can not stay. I will take what you have and leave at once, for the villains may be lurkin' round here somewhere. But first, the bullet! have you that safe?"
"Here it is."
The scout put it in his pocket, and taking in his hand a paper box of bread and meat which his loyal hostess brought him, resumed his hazardous journey.
He knew that there were other perils to encounter, unless he was particularly fortunate, but he had a heart prepared for any fate. The perils came, but he escaped them with adroitness, and at midnight of the following day he was admitted into the presence of Colonel Craven.
Surely this was no common man, and his feat was no common one.
In forty-eight hours, traveling only by night, he had traversed one hundred miles with a rope round his neck, and without the prospect of special reward. For he was but a private, and received but a private's pay—thirteen dollars a month, a shoddy uniform, and hard-tack, when he could get it.
Colonel Craven opened the bullet, and read the dispatch.
It was dated "Louisa, Kentucky, December 24, midnight"; and directed him to move at once with his regiment (the Fortieth Ohio, eight hundred strong) by way of Mount Sterling and McCormick's Gap, to Prestonburg. He was to encumber his men with as few rations as possible, since the safety of his command depended on his celerity. He was also requested to notify Lieutenant-Colonel Woodford, at Stamford, and direct him to join the march with his three hundred cavalry.
On the following morning Col. Craven's column began to move. The scout waited till night, and then set out on his return. The reader will be glad to learn that the brave man rejoined his regiment.
Chapter XXIII—Garfield's Bold Strategy
Garfield didn't wait for the scout's return. He felt that no time was to be lost. The expedition which he had planned was fraught with peril, but it was no time for timid counsels.
On the morning following Jordan's departure he set out up the river, halting at George's Creek, only twenty miles from Marshall's intrenched position. As the roads along the Big Sandy were impassable for trains, and unsafe on account of the nearness of the enemy, he decided to depend mainly upon water navigation for the transportation of his supplies.
The Big Sandy finds its way to the Ohio through the roughest and wildest spurs of the Cumberland Mountains, and is a narrow, fickle stream. At low-water it is not navigable above Louisa, except for small flat-boats pushed by hand. At high-water small steamers can reach Piketon, one hundred and twenty miles from the mouth; but when there are heavy freshets the swift current, filled with floating timber, and the overhanging trees which almost touch one another from the opposite banks, render navigation almost impracticable. This was enough to intimidate a man less in earnest than Garfield. He did not hesitate, but gathering together ten days' rations, he chartered two small steamers, and seizing all the flat-boats he could lay hands on, took his army wagons apart, and loaded them, with his forage and provisions, upon the flat-boats.
Just as he was ready to start he received an unexpected reinforcement. Captain Bent, of the Fourteenth Kentucky, entering Garfield's tent, said to him, "Colonel, there's a man outside who says he knows you. Bradley Brown, a rebel thief and scoundrel."
"Bradley Brown," repeated Garfield, puzzled. "I don't remember any such name."
"He has lived near the head of the Blaine, and been a boatman on the river. He says he knew you on the canal in Ohio."
"Oh, yes, I remember him now; bring him in."
Brown was ushered into the general's tent. He was clad in homespun, and spattered from head to foot with mud, but he saw in Garfield only the friend of earlier days, and hurrying up to him, gave him a hearty grasp of the hand, exclaiming, "Jim, old feller, how are yer?"
Garfield received him cordially, but added, "What is this I hear, Brown? Are you a rebel?"
"Yes," answered the new-comer, "I belong to Marshall's force, and I've come straight from his camp to spy out your army."
"Well, you go about it queerly," said Garfield, puzzled.
"Wait till you are alone, colonel. Then I'll tell you about it."
Col. Bent said in an undertone to Garfield, as he left the tent, "Don't trust him, colonel; I know him as a thief and a rebel."
This was the substance of Brown's communication. As soon as he heard that James A. Garfield was in command of the Union forces, it instantly struck him that it must be his old comrade of the canal, for whom he still cherished a strong attachment. He was in the rebel camp, but in reality cared little which side was successful, and determined out of old friendship to help Garfield if he could.
Concealing his design, he sought Marshall, and proposed to visit the Union camp as a spy, mentioning his former intimacy with Garfield. Gen. Marshall readily acceded to his plan, not suspecting that it was his real purpose to tell Garfield all he knew about the rebel force. He proceeded to give the colonel valuable information on this subject.
When he had finished, Garfield said, "I advise you to go back to Marshall."
"Go back to him, colonel? Why, he would hang me to the first tree."
"Not if you tell him all about my strength and intended movements."
"But how kin I? I don't know a thing. I was brought into the camp blindfolded."
"Still you can guess. Suppose you tell him that I shall march to-morrow straight for his camp, and in ten days be upon him."
"You'd be a fool, colonel, to do that, and he 'trenched so strongly, unless you had twenty thousand men."
"I haven't got that number. Guess again."
"Well, ten thousand."
"That will do for a guess. Now to-day I shall keep you locked up, and to-morrow you can go back to Marshall."
At nightfall Brown went back to the rebel camp, and his report was made in accordance with Garfield's suggestions.
The fact was, that deducting those sick and on garrison duty, Garfield's little army amounted to but fourteen hundred in place of the ten thousand reported to the rebel commander. This little army was set in motion the next day. It was a toilsome and discouraging march, over roads knee-deep in mire, and the troops necessarily made but slow progress, being frequently obliged to halt. Some days they succeeded in making but five or six miles. On the 6th of January, however, they arrived within seven miles of Paintville. Here while Garfield was trying to catch a few hours' sleep, in a wretched log hut, he was roused by Jordan, the scout, who had just managed to reach the camp.
"Have you seen Craven?" asked Garfield eagerly.
"Yes; he can't be more'n two days behind me, nohow."
"God bless you, Jordan! You have done us great service," said Garfield, warmly, feeling deeply relieved by this important news.
"Thank ye, colonel. That's more pay 'n I expected."
In the morning another horseman rode up to the Union camp. He was a messenger direct from Gen. Buell. He brought with him an intercepted letter from Marshall to his wife, revealing the important fact that the Confederate general had five thousand men—forty-four hundred infantry and six hundred cavalry—with twelve pieces of artillery, and that he was daily expecting an attack from a Union force of ten thousand.
It was clear that Brown had been true, and that it was from him Gen. Marshall had received this trustworthy intelligence of the strength of the Union army.
Garfield decided not to communicate the contents of this letter, lest his officers should be alarmed at the prospect of attacking a force so much superior. He called a council, however, and put this question:
"Shall we march at once, or wait the coming of Craven?"
All but one were in favor of waiting, but Garfield adopted the judgment of this one.
"Forward it is!" he said. "Give the order."
I will only state the plan of Garfield's attack in a general way. There were three roads that led to Marshall's position—one to the east, one to the west, and one between the two. These three roads were held by strong Confederate pickets.
Now, it was Garfield's policy to keep Marshall deceived as to his strength. For this reason, he sent a small body to drive in the enemy's pickets, as if to attack Paintville. Two hours after, a similar force, with the same orders, were sent on the road to the westward, and two hours later still, a small force was sent on the middle road. The first pickets, retreating in confusion, fled to the camp, with the intelligence that a large body of Union troops were on their way to make an attack. Similar tidings were brought by the two other bodies of pickets, and Marshall, in dismay, was led to believe that he was menaced by superior numbers, and hastily abandoned Paintville, and Garfield, moving his men rapidly over the central route, occupied the town.
Gen. Marshall would have been intensely mortified had he known that this large Union army was little more than one-fourth the size of his own.
But his alarm was soon increased. On the evening of the 8th of January, a spy entered his camp, and reported that Craven, with thirty-three hundred men, was within twelve hours' march at the westward.
The big general (he weighed three hundred pounds) was panic-stricken. Believing Garfield's force to number ten thousand, this reinforcement would carry his strength up to over thirteen thousand. Ruin and defeat, as he fancied, stared him in the face, for how could his five thousand men encounter nearly three times their number? They would, of course, be overwhelmed. There was safety only in flight.
So the demoralized commander gave orders to break camp, and retreated precipitately, abandoning or burning a large portion of his supplies.
Garfield saw the fires, and guessed what had happened, being in the secret of Marshall's delusion. He mounted his horse, and, with a thousand men, entered the deserted camp at nine in the evening. The stores that were yet unconsumed he rescued from destruction for the use of his own army.
In order to keep up the delusion, he sent off a detachment to harass the retreat of his ponderous adversary and fill his mind with continued disquiet.
The whole thing was a huge practical joke, but not one that the rebels were likely to enjoy. Fancy a big boy of eighteen fleeing in dismay from a small urchin of eight, and we have a parallel to this flight of Gen. Marshall from an intrenched position, with five thousand troops, when his opponent could muster but fourteen hundred men in the open field.
Thus far, I think, it will be agreed that Colonel Garfield was a strategist of the first order. His plan required a boldness and dash which, under the circumstances, did him the greatest credit.
The next morning Colonel Craven arrived, and found, to his amazement, that Garfield, single-handed, had forced his formidable enemy from his strong position, and was in triumphant possession of the deserted rebel camp.
