and was assigned to the command of the Twentieth Brigade.  Reached Shiloh in time to take part in the second day’s fight.  Was engaged in all the operations in front of Corinth, and in June, 1862, rebuilt the bridges on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and exhibited noticeable engineering skill in repairing the fortifications of Huntsville.  Was granted leave of absence July 30, 1862, on account of ill health, and returned to Hiram, Ohio, where he lay ill for two months.  Went to Washington on September 25, 1862, and was ordered on court-martial duty.  November 25 was assigned to the case of General Fitz John Porter.  In February, 1863, returned to duty under General Rosecrans, then in command of the Army of the Cumberland.  Rosecrans made him his chief of staff, with responsibilities beyond those usually given to this office.  In this field Garfield’s influence on the campaign in middle Tennessee was most important.  One familiar incident shows and justifies the great influence he wielded in its counsels.  Before the battle of Chickamauga, June 24, 1863, General Rosecrans asked the written opinion of seventeen of his generals on the advisability of an immediate advance.  All others opposed, but Garfield advised it, and his arguments were so convincing that Rosecrans determined to seek an engagement.  General Garfield wrote out all the orders of that fateful day, September 19, excepting one, and that one was the blunder that lost the day.  Garfield volunteered to take the news of the defeat on the right to General George H. Thomas, who held the left of the line.  It was a bold ride, under constant fire, but he reached Thomas and gave the information that saved the Army of the Cumberland.  For this action he was made a major-general September 19, 1863—­promoted for gallantry on a field that was lost.  Yielded to Mr. Lincoln’s urgent request and on December 5, 1863, resigned his commission and hastened to Washington to sit in Congress, to which he had been chosen fifteen months before.  Was offered a division in the Army of the Cumberland by General Thomas, but yielded to the representations of the President and Secretary Stanton that he would be more useful in the House of Representatives.  Was placed on the Committee on Military Affairs, then the most important in Congress.  In the Thirty-ninth Congress (1865) was changed, at his own request, from the Committee on Military Affairs to the Committee on Ways and Means.  In the Fortieth Congress (1867) was restored to the Committee on Military Affairs and made its chairman.  In the Forty-first Congress the Committee on Banking and Currency was created and he was made its chairman.  Served also on the Select Committee on the Census and on the Committee on Rules.  Was chairman of the Committee on Appropriations in the Forty-second and Forty-third Congresses.  In the Forty-fourth, Forty-fifth, and Forty-sixth Congresses (the House being Democratic) was assigned to the Committee on Ways and Means.  In 1876,