CHAPTER XI.

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OPENING THE BIG SANDY CAMPAIGN.

ARFIELD had two very difficult things to accomplish. He had to open communica

tions 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 every movement and be likely to fall upon his separate columns, as soon as 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. Garfield therefore applied to Colonel Moore of the Fourteenth Kentucky.

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

The Kentuckian reflected a moment, then answered:

"I think I have-John Jordan from the head of Blaine."

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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 would die in defence of some honor or trust. Jordan was also a born actor, a man of unflinching courage and great expedients, 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 always remembered him 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. Garfield sounded him thoroughly, for the campaign might depend upon his fidelity. 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 gave Him my life without conditions; and, if He sees fit to take it in this tramp, why, it is His. I have nothing to say against it."

SENDING DISPATCHES.

161

"You mean you have come into the war without expecting to get out of it?"

"I do, Colonel."

"Will you die rather than let this dispatch be

taken ?"

"I will."

The colonel, recalling what had passed in his own mind, when he was poring over his mother's Bible that night at his home in Ohio, quickly formed a conclusion.

Very well," he said; "I will trust you.'

The dispatch was written on tissue paper, rolled into the form of a bullet, coated with 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.

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 ordered him to move his regiment at once to Prestonburg. He was directed to encumber the men with as few rations and as little baggage as possible, bearing in mind, that the safety of his command would depend on his expedition. He was also directed to have the dispatch conveyed to Lieutenant-Colonel Woolford, at Stamford, and to order him to join the march with his three hundred cavalry. Hours

were now worth months of ordinary time; and on the following morning Cranor's column was set in motion.

The dispatch fully revealed to Cranor Garfield's intention to move at once upon the enemy. Of Marshall's real strength he is ignorant; but his scouts and the country people report, that the rebel's main body, which is intrenched in an almost impregnable position near Paintville, numbers from four to seven thousand, and that an outlying force of eight hundred occupies West Liberty (a town directly on the route), through which Colonel Cranor is to march to effect a junction with Garfield's men. Cranor's column is one thousand one hundred strong; and the main body, under Garfield, numbers about seventeen hundred, consisting of the Forty-second Ohio Infantry, one thousand and thirteen strong, and the Fourteenth Kentucky Infantry, numbering five hundred, rank and file, and imperfectly armed and equipped. Garfield's entire force, therefore counted two thousand eight hundred, in a strange district, cut off from reinforcements, with which to meet and crush an army of at least five thousand, familiar with the country and daily receiving recruits from the disaffected southern counties. Evidently a forward movement is attended with great hazard; but the Union commander does not waste time in considering the obstacles and dangers of the expedition. On the morning after the scout's donna....

OPENING THE CAMPAIGN.

163

field sets out with such of his command as are in readiness, and halting at George's Creek, only twenty miles from Marshall's intrenched position, prepares to move at once upon the enemy.

The roads along the Big Sandy are impassable for trains; and the close proximity of the enemy renders it unsafe to make so wide a detour from the river, as would be required to send supplies by the table-lands to the westward. Under these circumstances Garfield decides to depend mainly upon water-navigation to transport his supplies, and to use the army-train, only when his troops are obliged, by absolutely impassable roads, to move away from the river.

The Big Sandy is a narrow, fickle stream, that finds its way to the Ohio through the roughest and wildest spurs of the Cumberland Mountains. At low-water it is not navigable above Louisa, except by small flat-boats pushed by hand; but these ascend as high as Piketon, one hundred and twenty miles from the mouth of the river, At high-water small steamers can reach Piketon; but heavy freshets render navigation impracticable, owing to the swift current filled with floating timber, and to the overhanging trees, which almost touch one another from the opposite banks. At this time the river was only of moderate height; and, as will be readily seen, the supply of a brigade in mid-winter by such an uncertain stream, and in the presence of a powerful enemy, was a thing of great difficulty.