"All that night, and all the next day, and all the following night they struggled with the furious river, Garfield never but once leaving the helm, and then for only a few hours' sleep, which he snatched in his clothes in the day-time. At last they rounded to at the Union camp, and then went up a cheer that might have been heard all over Kentucky. His waiting men, frantic with joy, seized their glorious commander, and were with difficulty prevented from bearing him on their shoulders to his quarters."
The little army was saved from starvation by the canal-boy, who had not forgotten his old trade. He had risked his life a dozen times over in making the perilous trip, which has been so graphically described in the passages I have quoted. But for his early and humble experience, he never would have been able to bring the little steamer up the foaming river. Little did he dream in the days when, as a boy, he guided the Evening Star, that fifteen years hence, an officer holding an important command he would use the knowledge then acquired to save a famishing army. We can not wonder that his men should have been devotedly attached to such a commander.
I have said that the Kentucky campaign was not one of the most important operations of the civil war, but its successful issue was most welcome, coming at the time it did. It came after a series of disasters, which had produced wide-spread despondency, and even dimmed the courage of President Lincoln. It kindled hope in the despondent, and nerved patriotic arms to new and vigorous efforts.
"Why did Garfield, in two weeks, do what it would have taken one of you Regular folks two months to accomplish?" asked the President, of a distinguished army officer.
"Because he was not educated at West Point," answered the officer, laughing.
"No," replied Mr. Lincoln; "that wasn't the reason. It was because, when a boy, he had to work for a living."
This was literally true. To his struggling boyhood and early manhood, and the valuable experience it brought him, Garfield was indebted for the strength and practical knowledge which brought him safely through a campaign conducted against fearful odds.
His country was not ungrateful. He received the thanks of the commanding general for services which "called into action the highest qualities of a soldier—fortitude, perseverance, courage," and a few weeks later a commission as brigadier-general of volunteers, to date from the battle of Middle Creek.
So Jim Garfield, the canal-boy, has become a general. It is an important step upward, but where are others to come?
If this were designed to be a complete biography of General Garfield, I should feel it my duty to chronicle the important part he took in the battle of Chickamauga, where he acted as chief of staff to General Rosecranz, aiding his superior officer at a most critical point in the battle by advice which had an important influence in saving the day. I should like to describe the wonderful and perilous ride of three miles which he took, exposing his life at every moment, to warn General Thomas that he is out-flanked, and that at least seventy thousand men are closing down upon his right wing, to crush his twenty-five thousand to fragments. Sometimes I hope a poet, of fitting inspiration, will sing of that ride, and how, escaping from shot and shell, he plunged down the hill through the fiery storm, reaching Thomas in safety, though his noble horse at that moment fell dead at his feet. I can not spare time for the record, but must refer my young reader to the pages of Edmund Kirke, or General James S. Brisbin.