The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865

"Yer nag is wuth ary two o' my critters," said the man. "Ye kin take the best beast I've got; and when ye 'r' ag'in this way, we'll swop back even."

The scout thanked him, mounted the horse, and rode off into the mist again, without the warm breakfast which the good woman had, half-cooked, in the kitchen. It was eleven o'clock; and at twelve that night he entered Colonel Cranor's quarters at Paris,—having ridden a hundred miles with a rope round his neck, for thirteen dollars a month, hard-tack, and a shoddy uniform.

The Colonel opened the dispatch. It was dated, Louisa, Kentucky, December 24th, midnight; and directed him to move at once with his regiment, (the Fortieth Ohio, eight hundred strong,) by the way of Mount Sterling and McCormick's Gap, to Prestonburg. He would incumber his men with as few rations and as little luggage as possible, bearing in mind that the safety of his command depended on his expedition. He would also convey the dispatch to Lieutenant-Colonel Woolford, at Stamford, and direct him to join the march with his three hundred cavalry.

Hours now were worth months of common time, and on the following morning Cranor's column began to move. The scout lay by till night, then set out on his return, and at daybreak swapped his now jaded horse for the fresh Kentucky mare, even. He ate the housewife's breakfast, too, and took his ease with the good man till dark, when he again set out, and rode through the night in safety. After that his route was beset with perils. The Providence which so wonderfully guarded his way out seemed to leave him to find his own way in; or, as he expressed it, "Ye see, the Lord, He keered more fur the dispatch nor He keered fur me: and 'twas nateral He should; 'case my life only counted one, while the dispatch, it stood fur all Kaintuck."

Be that as it may, he found his road a hard one to travel. The same gang which followed him out waylaid him back, and one starry midnight he fell among them. They lined the road forty deep, and seeing he could not run the gauntlet, he wheeled his mare and fled backwards. The noble beast did her part; but a bullet struck her, and she fell in the road dying. Then—it was Hobson's choice—he took to his legs, and, leaping a fence, was at last out of danger. Two days he lay in the woods, not daring to come out; but hunger finally forced him to ask food at a negro shanty. The dusky patriot loaded him with bacon, brown bread, and blessings, and at night piloted him to a Rebel barn, where he enforced the Confiscation Act, to him then "the higher law,"—necessity.

With his fresh horse he set out again; and after various adventures and hair-breadth escapes, too numerous to mention,—and too incredible to believe, had not similar things occurred all through the war,—he entered, one rainy midnight, (the 6th of January,) the little log hut, seven miles from Paintville, where Colonel Garfield was sleeping.

The Colonel rubbed his eyes, and raised himself upon his elbow.

"Back safe?" he asked. "Have you seen Cranor?"

"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.

Space will not permit me to detail this midnight ramble; but it gave Garfield the exact position of the enemy. They had made a stand, and laid an ambuscade for him. Strongly posted on a semicircular hill, at the forks of Middle Creek, on both sides of the road, with cannon commanding its whole length, and hidden by the trees, they were waiting his coming.

The Union commander broke up his bivouac at four in the morning and began to move forward. Reaching the valley of Middle Creek, he encountered some of the enemy's mounted men, and captured a quantity of stores they were trying to withdraw from Prestonburg. Skirmishing went on until about noon, when the Rebel pickets were driven back upon their main body, and then began the battle. It is not my purpose to describe it; for that has already been ably done, in thirty lines, by the man who won it.

It was a wonderful battle. In the history of this war there is not another like it. Measured by the forces engaged, the valor displayed, and the results which followed, it throws into the shade even the achievements of the mighty hosts which saved the nation. Eleven hundred men, without cannon, charge up a rocky hill, over stumps, over stones, over fallen trees, over high intrenchments, right into the face of five thousand, and twelve pieces of artillery!

For five hours the contest rages. Now the Union forces are driven back; then, charging up the hill, they regain the lost ground, and from behind rocks and trees pour in their murderous volleys. Then again they are driven back, and again they charge up the hill, strewing the ground with corpses. So the bloody work goes on; so the battle wavers, till the setting sun, wheeling below the hills, glances along the dense lines of Rebel steel moving down to envelop the weary eleven hundred. It is an awful moment, big with the fate of Kentucky. At its very crisis two figures stand out against the fading sky, boldly defined in the foreground.

One is in Union blue. With a little band of heroes about him, he is posted on a projecting rock, which is scarred with bullets, and in full view of both armies. His head is uncovered, his hair streaming in the wind, his face upturned in the darkening daylight, and from his soul is going up a prayer,—a prayer for Sheldon and Cranor. He turns his eyes to the northward, and his lip tightens, as he throws off his coat, and says to his hundred men,—"Boys, we must go at them!"

The other is in Rebel gray. Moving out to the brow of the opposite hill, and placing a glass to his eye, he, too, takes a long look to the northward. He starts, for he sees something which the other, on lower ground, does not distinguish. Soon he wheels his horse, and the word "Retreat" echoes along the valley between them. It is his last word; for six rifles crack, and the Rebel Major lies on the ground quivering.

The one in blue looks to the north again, and now, floating proudly among the trees, he sees the starry banner. It is Sheldon and Cranor! The long ride of the scout is at last doing its work for the nation. On they come like the rushing wind, filling the air with their shouting. The rescued eleven hundred take up the strain, and then, above the swift pursuit, above the lessening conflict, above the last boom of the wheeling cannon, goes up the wild huzza of Victory. The gallant Garfield has won the day, and rolled back the disastrous tide which has been sweeping on ever since Big Bethel. In ten days Thomas routs Zollicoffer, and then we have and hold Kentucky.

Every one remembers a certain artist, who, after painting a "neighing steed," wrote underneath the picture, "This is a horse," lest it should be mistaken for an alligator. I am tempted to imitate his example, lest the reader, otherwise, may not detect the rambling parallel I have herein drawn between a Northern and a Southern "poor white man."

President Lincoln, when he heard of the Battle of Middle Creek, said to a distinguished officer, who happened to be with him,—

"Why did Garfield in two weeks do what would have taken one of you Regular folks two months to accomplish?"

"Because he was not educated at West Point," answered the West-Pointer, laughing.

"No," replied Mr. Lincoln. "That wasn't the reason. It was because, when he was a boy, he had to work for a living."

But our good President, for once, was wrong,—for once, he did not get at the core of the matter. Jordan, as well as Garfield, "had, when a boy, to work for a living." The two men were, perhaps, of about equal natural abilities,—both were born in log huts, both worked their own way to manhood, and both went into the war consecrating their very lives to their country: but one came out of it with a brace of stars on his shoulder, and honored by all the nation; the other never rose from the ranks, and went down to an unknown grave, mourned only among his native mountains. Something more than work was at the bottom of this contrast in their lives and their destinies. It was Free Schools, which the North gave the one, and of which the South robbed the other. Plant a free school at every Southern cross-road, and every Southern Jordan will become a Garfield. Then, and not till then, will this Union be "reconstructed."

NOËL.[3 - Sent to Mr. Agassiz, with a basket of wine, on Christmas Eve, 1864.]

L'Académie en respect,
Nonobstant l'incorrection,
A la faveur du sujet,
Ture-lure,
N'y fera point de rature;
Noël! ture-lure-lure.

    Gui-Barôzai.

1

Quand les astres de Noël
Brillaient, palpitaient au ciel,
Six gaillards, et chacun ivre,
Chantaient gaîment dans le givre,
"Bons amis,
Allons done chez Agassiz!"

2

Ces illustres Pèlerins
D'Outre-Mer, adroits et fins,
Se donnant des airs de prêtre,
A l'envi se vantaient d'être
"Bons amis
De Jean Rudolphe Agassiz!"

3

Œil-de-Perdrix, grand farceur,
Sans reproche et sans pudeur,
Dans son patois de Bourgogne,
Bredouillait comme un ivrogne,
"Bons amis,
J'ai dansé chez Agassiz!"

4