cipal fighting detachment was led by Captain Frederick A. Williams, of Company "A," Forty-Second Ohio, who six months before had been a student at Hiram. If there was a single man in his command who had ever before been under fire, that fact was not known then and is not known to-day. Colonel Garfield accepted battle from an enemy whom he knew to out-number his own force by at least three to one, and the fight was won by simply attacking the foe promptly in his own position, making intelligent use of whatever advantages the ground offered, and fighting with steady courage and skill as long as daylight lasted. The Forty-Second regiment was engaged in many bloodier and more renowned battles during its three years of service, but it may be fairly questioned whether the regiment ever performed a day's duty of more timely and permanent value to the country. The battle of Middle Creek, skirmish 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 Donelson and Henry, and the repulse at Shiloh followed. The victory at Middle Creek proved the first wave of a returning tide." CHAPTER XII. CAMPAIGNS IN KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE. LACK OF PROVISIONS. THE GREAT FLOOD.-DANGEROUS SITUATION OF THE TROOPS. — GENERAL GARFIELD GOES TO THE OHIO RIVER. -PERILOUS VOYAGE UP THE BIG SANDY. RECEPTION BY THE HUNGRY TROOPS. EXPEDITION AGAINST THE ENEMY AT POUND GAP. -GENERAL ORDERS CONNECTED WITH HIS CAMPAIGN. — HIS TRANSFER TO LOUISVILLE.· - HIS NEW COMMAND. -FORCED MARCHES. -THE BATTLE OF CORINTH. REFUSAL TO RETURN SLAVES TO THEIR MASTERS. ELECTION TO CONGRESS. · APPOINTMENT AS CHIEF OF GENERAL ROSECRANS' STAFF. - BATTLE OF CHICAMAUGA.- PROMOTION TO MAJOR-GENERAL. — RESIGNATION. - THE next day after establishing the brigade camp, a heavy rain storm came on which laid a large portion of Sandy Valley under water. It was impossible to march or to transport provisions over land. The river became so swollen that the steamboats were detained in the Ohio, and that source of supply was also closed. It was a most alarming condition of affairs, for it was impossible for the army to find sufficient food in the surrounding region, even if they transgressed the strict orders forbidding foraging. When they had rations for two days only the puzzled commander saw no way to save his little army from actual starvation. If the army had been able to march or wade through the mud, it would have been a disobedience of orders to leave the country to be again occupied by the enemy. In his perplexity he decided to go for provisions himself, thinking that he might find some boat along the river which could be brought up in such an extremity. But he went as far as the Ohio river before he found one. The great flood was so powerful that no one dared venture into its surges. He found two or three boatmen who said that a boat had once ascended the Big Sandy in a flood like that, but it was a miracle that it escaped destruction. "Some boat must go up," said the general. "My men shall not starve!" He found a rickety steamboat fastened to the bank of the stream awaiting a subsidence of the flood, and he ordered the captain to take a load of provisions up the river to the camp. The captain refused, saying that it would be as bad as suicide to undertake it. But Colonel Garfield insisted, and the captain and men, thinking they might as well be drowned as be shot for disobedience of military orders, allowed the boat, with themselves, to be taken by the general for the dangerous experiment. Finding no one he dared to trust to take the wheel or who was strong enough to manage it in the swift current, the general himself took the wheel, and for two days and the greater part of one night stood at his post. It required the most cautious steering to avoid the projecting banks and trees covered by the flood, and often the boat would graze an obstruction which would have sunk it, if it had struck near the prow. Once the craft ran aground on a hard sandbank and refused to back off when the wheel was reversed, and the general tried to induce some of the men to take the small boat and go on shore to fasten a rope so that they might pull the boat off the bank by the aid of the windlass. Not one dared tempt the terrific flood.. So the general took the boat and the rope, and at a most hazardous risk of his life, especially so, as the river navigation was new to him, he crossed the stream and fastened the rope. It was a triumphant hour for him, when he saw the crowd of his anxious troops on the river bank awaiting his coming, and one in which he blessed the day on which he learned to steer a canal boat. The half-famished men, who had descended in despair to the river, believing that no boat could stem the flood, shouted themselves hoarse, and performed all kinds of childish antics, when they saw their general skillfully steering the frail and trembling river steamer. They could scarcely believe their own eyes; and many a night about the camp fires the soldiers afterwards told the story of the general's dangerous trip up the Sandy, with rations for his hungry men. For three months the union troops remained at or near Piketon, often making short expeditions to drive out stray bands of rebel marauders. In the month of March, General Garfield determined to drive out the rebels who were posted near Pound Gap, on the Virginia side of the Cumberland mountains; and with seven hundred men, including two hundred cavalry, he made a forced march of |