Now, it was Garfield’s policy to keep Marshall deceived as to his strength.  For this reason, he sent a small body to drive in the enemy’s pickets, as if to attack Paintville.  Two hours after, a similar force, with the same orders, were sent on the road to the westward, and two hours later still, a small force was sent on the middle road.  The first pickets, retreating in confusion, fled to the camp, with the intelligence that a large body of Union troops were on their way to make an attack.  Similar tidings were brought by the two other bodies of pickets, and Marshall, in dismay, was led to believe that he was menaced by superior numbers, and hastily abandoned Paintville, and Garfield, moving his men rapidly over the central route, occupied the town.

Gen. Marshall would have been intensely mortified had he known that this large Union army was little more than one-fourth the size of his own.

But his alarm was soon increased.  On the evening of the 8th of January, a spy entered his camp, and reported that Craven, with thirty-three hundred men, was within twelve hours’ march at the westward.

The big general (he weighed three hundred pounds) was panic-stricken.  Believing Garfield’s force to number ten thousand, this reinforcement would carry his strength up to over thirteen thousand.  Ruin and defeat, as he fancied, stared him in the face, for how could his five thousand men encounter nearly three times their number?  They would, of course, be overwhelmed.  There was safety only in flight.

So the demoralized commander gave orders to break camp, and retreated precipitately, abandoning or burning a large portion of his supplies.

Garfield saw the fires, and guessed what had happened, being in the secret of Marshall’s delusion.  He mounted his horse, and, with a thousand men, entered the deserted camp at nine in the evening.  The stores that were yet unconsumed he rescued from destruction for the use of his own army.

In order to keep up the delusion, he sent off a detachment to harass the retreat of his ponderous adversary and fill his mind with continued disquiet.

The whole thing was a huge practical joke, but not one that the rebels were likely to enjoy.  Fancy a big boy of eighteen fleeing in dismay from a small urchin of eight, and we have a parallel to this flight of Gen. Marshall from an intrenched position, with five thousand troops, when his opponent could muster but fourteen hundred men in the open field.

Thus far, I think, it will be agreed that Colonel Garfield was a strategist of the first order.  His plan required a boldness and dash which, under the circumstances, did him the greatest credit.

The next morning Colonel Craven arrived, and found, to his amazement, that Garfield, single-handed, had forced his formidable enemy from his strong position, and was in triumphant possession of the deserted rebel camp.

CHAPTER XXIV.