However, the obstacles do not intimidate Garfield. Gathering ten days' rations, he charters two small steamers and impresses all the available flat-boats; and taking his army-wagons apart, he loads them with his forage and provisions on the flat-boats. This is on New Year's Day, 1862. Next morning Captain Bent of the Fourteenth Kentucky, entering Garfield's tent, says to him:

FLAT-BOAT TRANSPORTING TROOPS.

"Colonel, there's a man outside, who says he knows you-Bradley Brown, a rebel thief and scoundrel."

"Brown," says Garfield, rising half-dressed from his blanket. "Bradley Brown! I don't know any

one of that name."

66

'He has lived near the head of Blaine, been a boatman on the river, says he knew you on the canal in Ohio."

"Oh, yes," answered Garfield, "bring him in. Now I remember him." "

In a moment Brown is ushered into the colonel's quarters. He is clad in country homespun, and

AN OLD ASSOCIATE.

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spattered from head to foot with the mud of a long journey. Without any regard for the sanctity of rank, he advances at once to the Union commander, and grasping him warmly by the hand, exclaims, "Jim, ole feller, how ar' ye?”

The colonel receives him cordially, but noticing his ruddy face says:

"Fifteen years haven't changed you, Brown. You will take a glass of whisky? But what's this I hear? Are you a rebel?

"Yes," answers Brown, "I belong to Marshall's force, and"-this he prefaces with a burst of laughter-"I've come stret from his camp to spy out yer army.

The colonel looks surprised, but says coolly: "Well, you go about it queerly."

"Yes, quar, but honest, Jim. When yer alone, I'll tell yer about it."

As Bent was leaving the tent, he said to his commander, in an undertone:

"Don't trust him, Colonel. I know him; he's a thief and a rebel."

Brown's disclosures, in a few words, are these: Hearing, a short time before, at the rebel camp, that James A. Garfield of Ohio had taken command of the Union forces, he inferred at once, that the officer was his old canal-companion, for whom, as a boy, he had felt a strong affection. This supposition was confirmed a few days later by his hearing from a renegade Northern man

Remem

some of the antecedents of the colonel. bering their former friendship, and being indifferent as to which side was successful in the campaign, he at once determined to do an important service for the Union commander.

With this object he sought an interview with Marshall, stated to him his former acquaintance with Garfield, and proposed, that he should take advantage of it to enter the Union camp, and learn all about the enemy's strength and intended movements. Marshall at once fell into the trap; and the same night Brown set out for the Union camp, ostensibly to spy for the rebels, but really to tell the Union commander all that he knew of the rebel strength and position. He did not know Marshall's exact force, but he gave Garfield such facts, as enabled him to make, within half an hour, a tolerably accurate map of the rebel position.

When this was done the Union colonel said to him:

"Did Bent blindfold you, when he brought you into camp?"

"Yes, Colonel, I couldn't see my hand afore me." "Well, then, you had better go back directly to Marshall."

"Go back to him! Why, Colonel, he'll hang me to the first tree!"

"No he won't, if you tell him all about my strength and intended movements."

"But how kin I? I don't know a thing. I tell ye I was blindfolded.”

"Yes, but that don't prevent your guessing at our numbers and movements. You may say, that I shall march to-morrow straight for his camp and in ten days be upon him.'

Brown sat for a moment musing. Then he said: "Wall, Colon❜l, ye'd be a durned fool-and if ye's that, ye must hev growed to it, since we were on ther canal-ef ye went upon Marshall, trenched as he is, with a man short on twenty thousand. I kin 'guess' ye's that many,"

"Guess again. I haven't that number.”

Now,

"Well, that will do for a Kentuckian. to-day, I will keep you under lock and key, and to-night you can go back to Marshall."

At nightfall, Brown set out for the rebel camp; and, on the following day, Garfield moved his little army, reduced by sickness and garrison-duty to fourteen hundred.

It was a toilsome march. The roads were kneedeep in mire. Though encumbered with only a light train, the army made very slow progress. Some days it marched five or six miles, and some considerably less; but on January 6th, it arrived within seven miles of Paintville. Here the men threw themselves upon the wet ground; and Garfield lay down in his boots, in a wretched log-hut, to catch a few hours of slumber.

About midnight, he was aroused from sleep by a man, who said that his business was urgent. The colonel rubbed his eyes, and raised himself on his elbow.

"Back safe?" he asked.

Cranor?"

"Have you seen

"Yes, Colonel. He can't be any more than two days behind me."

'God bless you, Jordan! You have done us a great service," said Garfield, warmly.

"Ithank you, Colonel," answered Jordan, his face trembling. "That is more pay than I expected."

He had returned safely; but Providence which had so wonderfully guarded his way out, seemed to leave him to find his way back; for, as he expressed it, "The Lord cared more for the dispatch than He cared for me; and it was natural He should, because my life counts only one, but the dispatch stood for the whole of Kentucky."

Next morning, another horseman rode up to the Union head-quarters. He was a messenger direct from General Buell, and had followed Garfield up the Big Sandy with dispatches. They contained only a few hurried sentences from a man to a woman; but their value was not to be estimated in money. It was a letter from Marshall to his wife, which Buell had intercepted, and which revealed the important fact, that the rebel general had five thousand men-four thousand four hundred infantry and six hundred cavalry-with twelve pieces