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light he was still at work, but at nine o'clock he was at General Buell's headquarters with a sketch of his plans. Buell read it and made it the basis of his special order No. 35, Army of the Ohio, December 17, 1861, by which the Eighteenth brigade, Army of the Ohio was organized." It is not the purpose of this sketch to follow closely the career of Colonel Garfield during his military life, except so far as to outline the general results of his labor, and to show the school of experience through which he was permitted to pass. The Eighteenth brigade, as constituted under the above order, was assigned to the command of Colonel Garfield, and thus in his commencement in the field of war he was set to no less a task than the driving of Humphrey Marshall out of eastern Kentucky. His forces consisted of four regiments of infantry and several squadrons of cavalry; but he set himself resolutely to his task. He found the country that had become the scene of his operations in a state of general alarm, infested with roving bands of outlaws, and the people imbued with disloyal sentiments. He was ignorant of the enemy's strength, but all reports indicated that it was far superior to his own-perhaps five thousand men against the twenty-six hundred he had himself. He had the good fortune to learn through an intercepted letter that Marshall believed that the Union forces coming against him numbered near ten thousand With this information, Colonel Garfield marched forward, determined to make the best of his advantage. He descended the Big Sandy valley slowly and cautiously, to find on an early daybreak his advance. guard charged upon by a body of Confederate cavalry. He immediately formed his men in a hollow square, and gave the enemy a volley which sent him up the valley in confusion. He marched again forward, and soon came upon the main rebel forces, who had occupied the crests of two ridges. With only eleven hundred men he boldly charged upon four times the number, but as the Union forces appeared, the rebels conceived their number to be much more than it really was, and fled. pursued some distance, and a number of prisoners taken. not cease his retreat until he had reached Virginian soil. the night in the abandoned quarters of the enemy, he burned the camp. and all the stores he could not carry away. Only seven of his men were wounded and not one of them killed. The result of his brief campaign was that the tide of the rebel success was stayed, Kentucky saved to the Union, and the colonel of the Forty-second made a brigadier-general. The remainder of his army career has been thus briefly summarized: He was thenceforth a member of the Army of the Cumberland. He did not again hold an independent command, but it is known that to his admirable power of organization was largely due the success of that army in saving to the north the region in which it served. When he returned to Louisville after his Marshall campaign, he found that the Army of the

They were Marshall did After passing

Ohio was already on its way to Nashville to aid Grant at Pittsburgh Landing, and he at once set out to follow it in command of the Twentieth brigade. He reached the scene of battle only in time to take part in its closing incidents. In the siege operations before Corinth his brigade bore a worthy share, and after General Beauregard abandoned the town he was among the first to enter it. About this time the ague, which he had contracted in early days, again asserted itself, and he was obliged to go home on a leave of sickness. This was in August, 1862, and he remained away until the following January, when he was again able to take the field. He was ordered to join General Rosecrans as chief-of-staff, a position which he continued to hold until his army career came to an end. He became at once the confidential adviser of his chief, and in the campaign in middle Tennessee, in the spring and summer of 1863, bore a prominent part. At the battle of Chickamauga he won great distinction by his bravery and skill in generalship, and was honored accordingly with a promotion to the rank of major-general.

This brief statement could be accompanied by any desired amount and variety of filling in and coloring, did the scope of this sketch admit, as many biographers, letter-writers and friends have furnished the world with an endless number of well authenticated incidents in illustration of his courage, soldierly genius, activity, mental grasp of the most complicated situations, and an entire devotion to duty. While absent on sick leave he was detailed as a member of the court of enquiry created to investigate the case of General McDowell, and on November 25 he was detailed as a member of the general court-martial for the trial of General Fitz John Porter, in which court he served until the finding of its verdict. "On the nineteenth of September," says Mr. Hinsdale in the work already quoted, "the great battle of Chickamauga began. We are here interested in this two days' conflict only as concerns General Garfield. He performed to the full the duties of his position as chief-of-staff, and much more. It is said that he wrote every general order except one, and that order was the order which, based on false information, clumsily worded and too literally obeyed, gave the enemy an immediate advantage. A gap was made in the line; Longstreet hurled a division through the opening; and in one short hour the whole right wing of the army dissolved into a mob of fugitives, bearing the general and his staff with them in their flight to Chattanooga. To check the retreat was impossible. Believing that retreat had also overtaken the other wing, General Rosecrans pushed on to Chattanooga to rally the army at that point. But his chief-of-staff, confident that the left was still holding its ground, sought and obtained permission to ride across the country in quest of Thomas. The ride was perilous and full of exciting incidents. side; his horse was hit. He found the

An orderly was killed by his Rock of Chickamauga' unmoved,

He communicated information of what had happened and then acted under the orders of Thomas the rest of that bloody day. The heroic remnant of the army repulsed every attack. As the baffled enemy fell back at night-fall, in company with General Granger, Garfield supervised the shotting of a battery of six "Napoleons" and saw them discharged after the rebels as they plunged into the woods and darkness. What subsequently befell the army and its general are well known matters of history. In a few days General Garfield was sent to Washington as bearer of dispatches and to explain matters to the war department. In Washington he met Secretary Stanton, who told him that he had been made a major-general of volunteers for 'gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Chickamauga.' For reasons soon' to appear, December 3, 1863, in the city of Washington, he resigned his commission. The period of his military service had been two years, three months and nineteen days. Leave is taken of Garfield the soldier without characterizing his services further than to repeat: no officer in the volunteer service more distinguished himself in the whole war. The facts as related speak for themselves."

The reasons above referred to grew out of the action of the Union Republicans of the Nineteenth district of Ohio-the one represented in congress for so many years by Elisha Whittlesey and afterwards by Joshua R. Giddings, who had, in the summer of 1862, nominated him as their representative in congress, while the people had ratified their choice by election. The debate was long in his own mind as to whether he should resign his already high position in the army and forego the promotion that was sure to come, or refuse to accept the duty and honor to which he had been assigned by his own people. He sought advice from those most competent to judge as to which field of labor could command from him the highest degree of usefulness. "He came to me one day," General Rosecrans has said, "and said that he had been asked to accept the Republican nomination for congress from the Ashtabula, Ohio, district, and asked my advice as to whether he ought to accept it, and whether he could do so honorably. I replied that I not only thought he could accept it with honor, but that I deemed it to be his duty to do so. 'The war is not yet over,' I said, 'nor will it be for some time to come. There will be many questions arising in congress which require not alone statesmanlike treatment, but the advice of men having acquaintance with military affairs will be needful; and for that and several other reasons, you would, I believe, do equally as good service to this country in congress as in the field.' The same view of the case was taken by President Lincoln, to whom also he went for advice. "In the first place," said he, "the Republican majority in congress is very small, and there is great doubt whether or not we can carry our measures; and in the next place, we are

greatly lacking in men of military experience in the house to regulate the legislation about the army." Impelled by these reasons and influenced by such high advice, he decided to serve his country in civil life as he had in the field, and resigning his commission he took his seat in the body in which he was to remain so many years, that was to be the scene of so many triumphs, and out of which he was to go only that he might accept the highest position within the gift of the American people.

It was here, in reality, that the life work of James A. Garfield was mainly done, in sustaining the cause of the Union against foes within and without; in aiding in the settlement of the new and dangerous problems that were the outcome of peace; in holding the Nation to the strict fulfillment of all the pledges made and implied when the country needed money to carry on the war, and in advancing such reforms as he believed the good of the people demanded. His place in the house was conspicuous from the first, and toward the end it was commanding; and truth only was spoken by one of America's eminent men when he said: "Since the year 1864, you cannot think of a question which has been debated in congress or discussed before the great tribunal of the American people, in regard to which you will not find, if you wish instruction, the argument on one side stated, in almost every instance, better than by anybody else, in some speech made in the house of representatives or on the hustings by Mr. Garfield."

His official positions in the house can be briefly stated: During his first term he served upon the committee on military affairs; during the second term on the ways and means committee; in the Fortieth congress he was chairman of that on military affairs; in the Forty-first, chairman of the committee on banking and currency; while in the Forty-second and afterwards he occupied the chairmanship of the appropriation committee, which was only relinquished when the Democrats came into power in 1875. As soon as he found himself in a position where his voice and vote must be given to the settlement of the great questions placed constitutionally within the power of congress, he again became the student of the Hiram and Williams days, and securing all the books obtainable upon constitutional law, finance, tariff, taxation and the public service, sat himself down to learn the history of each, and to understand somewhat the duties that had devolved upon him. His early speeches were mainly in the support of measures for the prosecution of the war, and while showing marks of sound sense and discretion, with eloquence at times, and always a felicity and directness of expression that grew as his mind and experience broadened and he gained more confidence in himself, there were none of them that gained for him the attention of the country or placed him in the front rank of congressional orators. But in April, 1864, several months after taking his seat, he was moved to the

delivery of a speech that showed not only his courage and lofty patriotism, but caused surprise-because of its force and eloquence-to even those who knew him the best, and best understood the depth and character of the man. A glance must be taken at the situation of the country, before the occasion and its demands can be understood. The year 1863 had opened with a dark outlook; the defeats of Fredericksburgh and Chancellorsville being of the recent past, and, added to them, the attempt of the navy upon Charleston. July, 1863, gave new hope in the victory of Gettysburg, to be followed soon by those of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and the opening of the Mississippi to the control of the Union. "Then came a lull," says one historian of the war and biographer of Garfield.* "Through the winter of 1863 and 1864 the Army of the Potomac was on the north bank of the Rapidan, Lee on the south bank, with the largest and most effective army that the Confederacy had put into the field. Sherman had spent the winter at Chattanooga, confronted by a large army. The war had been going on three years, at a great expense of men and money. The Democracy were clamoring for peace. There were some men in the Democratic party who doubtless were sincere in their belief that war was infinitely worse than any evils that could come from secession; but there was in the Democratic party an element in sympathy and league with the Confederacy. They raised the cry of Peace on any terms!' In Indiana were the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret organization, formed to aid the Confederacy. One of the most prominent of the northern sympathizers was Vallandigham, member of congress from Ohio, who, after the adjournment of the Thirty-seventh congress, made speeches through Ohio, counseling resistance to the draft which the administration had ordered. He charged the government with aiming, under the pretext of restoring the Union, to crush out liberty and establish a despotism, and of deliberately rejecting the propositions made by which the southern states could have been brought back. General Burnside, commanding the military department of Ohio, had issued an order, No. 38, forbidding certain disloyal practices. Vallandigham defiantly announced that he intended to disobey it and called upon his party to sustain him, for which he was arrested, tried by court-martial and sentenced to be confined in some fortress of the United States."

To make a martyr of Mr. Vallandigham was one of the last things to be thought of by a man of Mr. Lincoln's cool sense, and accordingly one of the grimmest jokes, so to speak, in American history, was perpetrated. The Ohio agitator was relegated to the bosom of his Confederate friends. He was sent inside the rebel lines and forbidden to return while hostilities should continue. After passing some weeks in Richmond, he made his escape on a blockade runner and went to Canada, where his time was *'James A. Garfield,' by C. C. Coffin page 226.

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