The Big Sandy finds its way to the Ohio through the roughest and wildest spurs of the Cumberland Mountains, and is a narrow, fickle stream.  At low-water it is not navigable above Louisa, except for small flat-boats pushed by hand.  At high-water small steamers can reach Piketon, one hundred and twenty miles from the mouth; but when there are heavy freshets the swift current, filled with floating timber, and the overhanging trees which almost touch one another from the opposite banks, render navigation almost impracticable.  This was enough to intimidate a man less in earnest than Garfield.  He did not hesitate, but gathering together ten days’ rations, he chartered two small steamers, and seizing all the flat-boats he could lay hands on, took his army wagons apart, and loaded them, with his forage and provisions, upon the flat-boats.

Just as he was ready to start he received an unexpected reinforcement.  Captain Bent, of the Fourteenth Kentucky, entering Garfield’s tent, said to him, “Colonel, there’s a man outside who says he knows you.  Bradley Brown, a rebel thief and scoundrel.”

“Bradley Brown,” repeated Garfield, puzzled.  “I don’t remember any such name.”

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

“Oh, yes, I remember him now; bring him in.”

Brown was ushered into the general’s tent.  He was clad in homespun, and spattered from head to foot with mud, but he saw in Garfield only the friend of earlier days, and hurrying up to him, gave him a hearty grasp of the hand, exclaiming, “Jim, old feller, how are yer?”

Garfield received him cordially, but added, “What is this I hear, Brown?  Are you a rebel?”

“Yes,” answered the new-comer, “I belong to Marshall’s force, and I’ve come straight from his camp to spy out your army.”

“Well, you go about it queerly,” said Garfield, puzzled.

“Wait till you are alone, colonel.  Then I’ll tell you about it.”

Col.  Bent said in an undertone to Garfield, as he left the tent, “Don’t trust him, colonel; I know him as a thief and a rebel.”

This was the substance of Brown’s communication.  As soon as he heard that James A. Garfield was in command of the Union forces, it instantly struck him that it must be his old comrade of the canal, for whom he still cherished a strong attachment.  He was in the rebel camp, but in reality cared little which side was successful, and determined out of old friendship to help Garfield if he could.

Concealing his design, he sought Marshall, and proposed to visit the Union camp as a spy, mentioning his former intimacy with Garfield.  Gen. Marshall readily acceded to his plan, not suspecting that it was his real purpose to tell Garfield all he knew about the rebel force.  He proceeded to give the colonel valuable information on this subject.

When he had finished, Garfield said, “I advise you to go back to Marshall.”