me, and communications will be so slow and 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."

Garfield at once set out for Catlettsburg, and, arriving there on the 22d of December, found his regiment had already proceeded to Louisa, twentyeight miles up the Big Sandy.

A state of general alarm existed throughout the district. The Fourteenth Kentucky-the only force of Union troops left in the Big Sandy region-had been stationed at Louisa, but had hastily retreated to the mouth of the river during the night of the 19th, under the impression that Marshall, with his whole force, was following to drive them into the Ohio. Union citizens and their families were preparing to cross the river for safety, but with the appearance of General Garfield's regiment a feeling of security returned, and this was increased when it was seen that the Union troops boldly pushed on to Louisa without even waiting for their colonel. This, however, was only in pursuance of orders he had telegraphed on the morning after he had formed the plan of the campaign by midnight, in his dingy quarters of his Louisville hotel.

Waiting at Catlettsburg only long enough to forward supplies to his forces, Garfield appeared

at Louisa on the morning of December 24th, and thence forward he became an actor in, all its circumstances considered, one of the most wonderful dramas to be read of in history.

CHAPTER XI.

OPENING THE BIG SANDY CAMPAIGN.

G

ARFIELD had two very difficult things to accomplish. He had to open communications with Colonel Cranor, while the intervening country, as has been said, was infested with roving bands of rebels and populated by disloyal people. He had also to form a junction with the force under that officer in the face of a superior enemy who would doubtless be apprised of his every movement and be likely to fall upon his separate columns the moment either was set in motion, in the hope of crushing them in detail. Either operation was hazardous if not well-nigh impossible.

Evidently the first thing to be done was to find a trustworthy messenger to convey dispatches between the two halves of his army. To this end Garfield applied to Colonel Moore of the Fourteenth Kentucky.

"Have you a man" he asked, "who will die rather than fail and betray us?"

The Kentuckian reflected a moment, then answered:

"I think I have, John Jordan from the head of the Blaine,"

Jordan was sent for and soon entered the tent of the Union commander. He was somewhat of a noted character in that region, a descendant of a Scotchman belonging to a family of men who ever died in the defense of some honor or trust. Jordan was also a born actor, a man of unflinching courage, of great expedients and devoted to the true principles that bind this land in the solidity of a great union.

On his appearance, Garfield was at once impressed in his favor. He remembers him to-day as a tall, gaunt, sallow man, of about thirty years, with gray eyes, a fine falsetto voice, pitched in the minor key, and a face that had as many expressions as could be found in a regiment. To the young colonel he seemed a strange combination of cunning, simplicity, undaunted courage and undoubting faith, but possessed of a quaint sort of wisdom, which ought to have given him to history. He sounded him thoroughly, for the fate of the campaign might depend upon his fidelity; but Jordan's soul was as clear as crystal, and in ten minutes Garfield had read it as if it had been an open volume.

"Why did you come into this war?" at last asked the commander.

"To do my part for the country, colonel,” answered Jordan, "and I made no terms with the Lord. I life without conditions, and

gave

Him my if He sees fit to take it in this tramp, why, it is His. I have nothing to say against it.'

"You mean you have come into the war not expecting to get out of it?"

"I do, colonel."

"Will you die rather than let this 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."

The dispatch was written on tissue paper, rolled into the form of a bullet, coated with warm lead, and put into the hand of Jordan. He was given a carbine and a brace of revolvers, and mounting his horse when the moon was down, he started on his perilous journey, where, in spite of its most romantic interest, we cannot follow him.

By midnight of the second day Jordan reached Colonel Cranor's quarters, at McCormick's Gap, and delivered his precious billet. The colonel opened the dispatch. It was dated Louisa, December 24th, midnight, and directed him to move his regiment at once to Prestonburg. He would encumber the men with as few rations as possible and as little baggage, bearing in mind that the safety of his command would depend on his expedition. He would also cause the dispatch to be conveyed to Lieutenant-Colonel Woolford, at Stamford, and direct him to join the march with his three hundred cavalry. Hours were now worth