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CHAPTER IX.

T

THE STORM BURSTS.

O write the career of James A. Garfield during the trying hours of the Rebellion

is to write at once a history of intrepid bravery, exquisite coolness in danger and sure success in action. His career has been rarely equaled by any American who entered the war as a civilian and laid down his sword with the rank of a major-general. His record, while bearing testimony to the marvelous spirit that always pervades a great people in a great crisis, and brings to the front a leader for every emergency, is a strangely complete illustration of how perfectly a man of brains and determination may succeed in some difficult walk in life, for which special and particular training have been always considered necessary.

When the South chose to inaugurate the return of the flowers, the budding of the leaves, in 1861, by tearing from the old flag some of its sacred stars, the country paused a moment, waiting, as it were, actors for the tragedy about to begin, leaders for the now inevitable armies. The guns that had opened upon Sumter on the memorable 12th of April, had not merely crumbled the walls of that Southern fortress, but they shattered also all hopes

of a peaceful solution of the problems then before: the country.

Civil war had become a sad necessity; a bitter fact to write upon the pages of a nation's history begun so gloriously in 1776. The President's proclamation of the 15th called forth the militia for objects entirely lawful and constitutional, and it was responded to with a patriotic fervor which melted down all previously existing party lines. This "uprising of a great people," as it was well termed by a foreign writer, was a kindling and noble spectacle. The hearts of a whole land throbbed as one. But we cannot now glance back upon the brilliant and burning enthusiasm that lighted our beloved country like a torch without a touch of sadness. For there was commingled with it so much ignorance, not merely of the magnitude of the contest before us, but of the nature of war itself. The high-spirited young men who thronged to swell the ranks of the volunteer force at the call of duty, marched off as gayly as if they were participants in a holiday turnout, a party of picnickers rather than devoted patriots upon a high percentage of whom the death seal was already set. The Rebellion was to be put down at once, and by little more than the mere show of the preponderating force of the loyal States; and the task of putting it down was to be attended with no more danger than was sufficient to give the enterprise a due flavor of excitement. War was

unknown to us except by report; the men of the Revolution were but spectres of a jeweled past; the veterans of 1812 were some of them still alive, but even they were gray with years and the memories of events.

"All of which they saw, and part of which they were,"

could be but dimly, disjointedly recalled. We had read of battles; we had seen something of the pomp of holiday soldiers; but of the grim realities of war we were absolutely ignorant. Indeed, not a few had come to the conclusion that war was a relic of barbarism, which civilization had so outgrown that modern times had forever dispensed with the soldier and his sword.

It need hardly be said that the call to conflict found us totally unprepared for the great storm about to break. Our regular army was insignificant in numbers and scattered over our vast territory or along our Western frontier, so that it was impossible to collect any considerable force anywhere together. Our militia system had everywhere fallen into neglect, allowed to die for want of interest, and in some States had almost ceased to have any existence whatever. The wits laughed at it; it was a common subject of newspaper criticism; it was christened "the cornstalk militia;" platform orators declaimed against it. Indeed, so low had it fallen in public estimation, that it required some moral courage to march through the streets at the head of a company.

The South had been wiser, or at least, more provident in this respect. The military spirit had never been discouraged there. Many of the political leaders had long been looking forward to the time when the unhappy sectional contests which were distracting the country would blaze into a civil war, and preparing for it. They watched the smouldering fire of discontent, and waited the great conflagration of blood. In some of the States there had been military academies where a military education had been obtained, so that they had a greater number of trained officers to put into their regiments. This gave them a considerable advantage at the start, an advantage more real than seeming, and one they were not slow to turn to its fullest promise.

At the North the people paused a moment to ask themselves where were they to get the needed officers. Graduates of West Point were scattered over the country; to them the civil authorities turned for assistance. This they rendered freely and ably, but it was, of necessity, limited in its scope. In most States the militia elected their own officers, and there was no other resource than to continue the system until time and the fire of the enemy's guns should level the abilities of the civilians, and bring to the front those who had the best title to be there. This produced a result of which we have no reason to be the least ashamed. A race of civilian officers, proving their right to

command by deeds, not diplomas, winning experience at the point of the bayonet, and testing bravery beneath the bullets of the foe, sprang everywhere into sight in the great upholding of the Stars and Stripes. To this class, now occupying a place in our history, that is to us a crowning wreath of credit, James A. Garfield belonged, and of those who were his comrades few show a better, braver record than he.

When the secession of the Southern States begun, National considerations were of paramount importance in Ohio as elsewhere. Indeed, the early signs of the dissolution between the North and South had attracted earnest attention and severe comment in that State. In its Senate and House of Representatives many a debate had been held, wherein the seeds of secessionists' doctrines had been sought to be planted by men who saw amiss. Garfield, as it will be remembered, was a member of the Senate, having been elected to represent Portage and Summit Counties two years before. The spring of 1861 found the Senate, of which he was a member, earnestly occupying its time with those questions that had so much interest within as well as beyond the borders of Ohio. Garfield's course on all these questions was manly and outspoken. He was foremost in the very small number (only six voting with him) who thought the spring of 1861 a bad time for adopting the Corwin Constitutional

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