"Yes, Gin'ral. He can't be more 'n two days ahind o' me, nohow."
"God bless you, Jordan! You have done us great service," said Garfield, warmly.
"I thanks ye, Gin'ral," said the scout, his voice trembling, "Thet's more pay 'n I expected."
To give the reader a full understanding of the result of the scout's ride, I must now move on with the little army. They are only fourteen hundred men, worn out with marching, but boldly they move down upon Marshall. False scouts have made him believe they are as strong as he: and they are; for every one is a hero, and they are led by a general. The Rebel has five thousand men,—forty-four hundred infantry and six hundred cavalry,—besides twelve pieces of artillery,—so he says in a letter to his wife, which Buell has intercepted and Garfield has in his pocket. Three roads lead to Marshall's position: one at the east, bearing down to the river, and along its western bank; another, a circuitous one, to the west, coming in on Paint Creek, at the mouth of Jenny's Creek, on the right of the village; and a third between the others, a more direct route, but climbing a succession of almost impassable ridges. These three roads are held by strong Rebel pickets, and a regiment is outlying at the village of Paintville.
To deceive Marshall as to his real strength and designs, Garfield orders a small force of infantry and cavalry to advance along the river, drive in the Rebel pickets, and move rapidly after them as if to attack Paintville. Two hours after this force goes off, a similar one, with the same orders, sets out on the road to the westward; and two hours later still, another small body takes the middle road. The effect is, that the pickets on the first route, being vigorously attacked and driven, retreat in confusion to Paintville, and dispatch word to Marshall that the Union army is advancing along the river. He hurries off a thousand infantry and a battery to resist the advance of this imaginary column. When this detachment has been gone an hour and a half, he hears, from the routed pickets on the right, that the Federals are advancing along the western road. Countermanding his first order, he now directs the thousand men and the battery to check the new danger; and hurries off the troops at Paintville to the mouth of Jenny's Creek to make a stand there. Two hours later the pickets on the central route are driven in, and, finding Paintville abandoned, flee precipitately to the fortified camp, with the story that the Union army is close at their heels and occupying the town. Conceiving that he has thus lost Paintville, Marshall hastily withdraws the detachment of one thousand men to his fortified camp; and Garfield, moving rapidly over the ridges of the central route, occupies the abandoned position.
So affairs stand on the evening of the 8th of January, when a spy enters the camp of Marshall, with tidings that Cranor, with thirty-three hundred (!) men, is within twelve hours' march at the westward. On receipt of these tidings, the "big boy,"—he weighs three hundred pounds by the Louisville hay-scales,—conceiving himself outnumbered, breaks up his camp, and retreats precipitately, abandoning or burning a large portion of his supplies. Seeing the fires, Garfield mounts his horse, and, with a thousand men, enters the deserted camp at nine in the evening, while the blazing stores are yet unconsumed. He sends off a detachment to harass the retreat, and waits the arrival of Cranor, with whom he means to follow and bring Marshall to battle in the morning.
In the morning Cranor comes, but his men are footsore, without rations, and completely exhausted. They cannot move one leg after the other. But the canal-boy is bound to have a fight; so every man who has strength to march is ordered to come forward. Eleven hundred—among them four hundred of Cranor's tired heroes—step from the ranks, and with them, at noon of the 9th, Garfield sets out for Prestonburg, sending all his available cavalry to follow the line of the enemy's retreat and harass and delay him.
Marching eighteen miles, he reaches at nine o'clock that night the mouth of Abbott's Creek, three miles below Prestonburg,—he and the eleven hundred. There he hears that Marshall is encamped on the same stream, three miles higher up; and throwing his men into bivouac, in the midst of a sleety rain, he sends an order back to Lieutenant-Colonel Sheldon, who is left in command at Paintville, to bring up every available man, with all possible dispatch, for he shall force the enemy to battle in the morning. He spends the night in learning the character of the surrounding country and the disposition of Marshall's forces; and now again John Jordan comes into action.
A dozen Rebels are grinding at a mill, and a dozen honest men come upon them, steal their corn, and make them prisoners. The miller is a tall, gaunt man, and his clothes fit the scout as if they were made for him. He is a Disunionist, too, and his very raiment should bear witness against this feeding of his enemies. It does. It goes back to the Rebel camp, and—the scout goes in it. That chameleon face of his is smeared with meal, and looks the miller so well that the miller's own wife might not detect the difference. The night is dark and rainy, and that lessens the danger; but still he is picking his teeth in the very jaws of the lion,—if he can be called a lion, who does nothing but roar like unto Marshall.