God bless you, boys! You have saved Kentucky!" They had, indeed, and in a wonderful battle. Says that genial writer, Edmund Kirke: "In the history of the late war, there is not another like it. Measured by the forces engaged, the valor displayed and the results that followed, it throws into the shade the achievements of even that mighty host that saved the nation. Eleven hundred footsore and weary men, without cannon, charged up a rocky hill, over stumps, over stones, over fallen trees, over high intrenchments, right into the face of five thousand fresh troops with twelve pieces of artillery!" To the reader, the action may seem insignificant, but it was of considerable importance to the Federal armies at this juncture. Captain F. H. Mason, in his history of the Forty-second Ohio Infantry, defines its place in history: "The battle of Middle Creek, trifling though it may be considered in comparison with later contests, was the first substantial victory won for the Union cause. At Big Bethel, Bull Run, in Missouri, and at various points at which the Union and Confederate forces had come in contact, the latter had been uniformly victorious. The people of the North, giving freely of their men and their substance in response to each successive call of the government, had long and anxiously watched and waited for a little gleam of victory to show that northern valor was a match for southern impetuosity in the field. They had waited in vain since the disaster at Bull Run, during the previous summer, and hope had almost yielded to despair. The story of Garfield's success at Middle Creek came, therefore, like a benediction to the Union cause. Though won at a trifling cost it was decisive so far as concerned the purposes of that immediate campaign. Marshall's force was driven from Kentucky, and made no further attempt to Occupy the Sandy Valley. The important victories at Mill Spring, Forts Donaldson and Henry, and the repulse at Shiloh, followed. The victory at Mill Creek proved the first wave of a returning tide." Speaking of the engagement, Garfield said, after he had gained a wider experience in war: "It was a very rash and imprudent affair on my part. If I had been an officer of more experience, I probably should not have made the attack. As it was, having gone into the army with the notion that fighting was our business. I didn't know any better." “And, during it all,” says Judge Clark, who was in the Forty-second, "Garfield was the soldiers' friend. Such was his affection for the men that he would divide his last rations with them, and nobody ever found anything better at head-quarters than the rest got." |