First of all, it was important that he should know something of the intervening country—­its conformation, its rivers and streams, if there were any.  So, on his way to his room he sought a book-store and bought a rude map of Kentucky, and then, shutting himself up in his room, while others were asleep, he devoted himself to a lesson in geography.  With more care than he had ever used in school, he familiarized himself with the geography of the country in which he was to operate, and then set himself to devise some feasible plan of campaign.

It was a hard problem, and required still more anxious thought, because the general to whom he was to report it, was, unlike himself, a man thoroughly trained in the art of war.

The next morning, according to orders, he sought again his commanding officer.

Gen. Buell was a man of great reticence and severe military habits, and if the plan were weak or foolish, as might well be from the utter lack of experience of the young officer who was to make it, he would unhesitatingly say so.

As Garfield laid his rude map and roughly outlined plan on the table, and explained his conception of the campaign, he watched anxiously to see how Gen. Buell was impressed by it.  But the general was a man who knew how to veil his thoughts.  He waited in silence till Garfield had finished, only asking a brief question now and then, and at the end, without expressing his opinion one way or the other, merely said:  “Colonel Garfield, your orders will be sent you at six o’clock this evening.”

Garfield was not compelled to wait beyond that hour.

Promptly the order came, organizing the Eighteenth Brigade of the Army of the Ohio, under the command of Colonel Garfield, with a letter of instructions, embodying essentially the plan submitted by the young officer in the morning.

When Garfield set out with his command the next morning, Gen. Buell said to him at parting: 

“Colonel, you will be at so great a distance from me, and communication will be so difficult, that I must commit all matters of detail and much of the fate of the campaign to your discretion.  I shall hope to hear a good account of you.”

CHAPTER XXII.

JOHN JORDAN’S DANGEROUS JOURNEY.

Col.  Garfield had already sent on his regiment in advance to Louisa, twenty-eight miles up the Big Sandy.

There he joined them on the 24th, having waited at Catlettsburg only long enough to forward to them necessary supplies.

The arrival of the regiment was opportune, for the district was thoroughly alarmed.  A regiment had been stationed there—­the Fourteenth Kentucky—­but had hastily retreated to the mouth of the river during the night of the 19th, under the impression that Marshall was advancing with his forces to drive them into the Ohio.  It was a false alarm, but the Union citizens were very much alarmed, and were preparing with their families to cross the river for safety.  With the appearance of Garfield’s regiment a feeling of security returned.