Garfield takes Command of the Twentieth Brigade.--Battles of
Shiloh and Corinth.--The fugitive Slave.--Attack of
Malaria.--Home Furlough.--Summoned to Washington.--Death of
his Child.--Ordered to Join General Rosecrans.--Kirke's
description of Garfield.
When Garfield reached Louisville he found that General Buell had
hastened on to the assistance of Grant, who was then at Pittsburg
Landing. Overtaking General Buell at Columbia, Tennessee, he was
assigned to the command of the Twentieth Brigade, and in the famous
battle of Shiloh won new laurels.
In the long and wearisome siege of Corinth, Garfield's brigade did
signal service; and in June, 1862, they were sent to repair and protect
the Memphis and Charleston railroad. Here, as well as at Huntsville,
Alabama, Garfield's old skill at carpentry came into play; and he gained
no small renown for his fine military engineering.
It was while in the command of this brigade that a fugitive slave came
running into his camp, badly wounded and terribly frightened. A few
minutes after, his master came riding up, and, with a volley of oaths,
demanded his "property." Garfield was not present, so he passed on to
the division commander. This man was a believer in the theory that
fugitive slaves should be returned to their masters, and that the Union
soldiers should see that this was done. He accordingly wrote a
peremptory order to General Garfield, in whose command the slave was
thought to be hidden, telling him to hunt out the fugitive and deliver
him over to his master.
General Garfield took the order and quietly wrote on the back of it,--
"I respectfully, but positively, decline to allow my command to search
for, or deliver up any fugitive slaves. I conceive that they are here
for quite another purpose. The command is open, and no obstacles will be
placed in the way of search." When reminded by one of his staff-officers
that these rash words might bring him up before a court-martial, he
replied,--
"The matter may as well be tested first as last. Right is right, and I
do not propose to mince matters at all. My soldiers are here for other
purposes than hunting and returning fugitive slaves. My people, on the
Western Reserve of Ohio, did not send my boys and myself down here to do
that kind of business, and they will back me up in my action."
The order was returned with the indorsement unchanged, and nothing more
was said about it.
The exposures of the past year, together with the malarial atmosphere of
the South, began at last to tell upon the strong physique of the young
commander, and he was obliged to take a few weeks' furlough. He had
hardly started for home however, when the secretary of war, who had now
learned his rare qualities, issued orders for him to relieve General
Morgan of his command at Cumberland Gap.
Garfield was too sick to obey, and, a month later the secretary desired
him to report in person at Washington, as soon as his health would
allow. A new honor awaited him here, for so high an estimate had been
placed upon his judgment and his technical knowledge of law that he had
been chosen one of the first members in the court-martial of Fitz John
Porter.
While at Washington, he was called home by the sickness and death of his
eldest child, the "Little Trot," whose simple headstone in the cemetery
at Hiram bears the touching inscription,--
"She has gained the crown without the cross."
In the following January, Garfield was ordered to join General
Rosecrans, then in command of the Army of the Cumberland. It is said
that Rosecrans was somewhat prejudiced against Garfield because he had
heard of him as a preacher who had taken up politics. A few days'
acquaintance however, so thoroughly changed the General's opinion, that
he gave Garfield the choice of joining his staff or commanding a
brigade. He chose the former, and Rosecrans, writing of him, said,--
"I found him to be a competent and efficient officer, an earnest and
devoted patriot, and a man of the highest honor."
It is interesting to read just here Edmund Kirke's graphic picture of
Garfield, "Down in Tennessee," which was written in 1863.
"In a corner by the window, seated at a small pine desk--a sort of
packing-box perched on a long-legged stool, and divided into
pigeon-holes, with a turn-down lid, was a tall, deep-chested,
sinewy-built man, with regular, massive features, a full, clear blue
eye, and a high broad forehead, rising into a ridge over the eyes, as if
it had been thrown up by a plough. There was something singularly
engaging in his open expressive face, and his whole appearance indicated
great reserve power. His uniform, though cleanly brushed and sitting
easily upon him, had a sort of democratic air, and everything about him
seemed to denote that he was a man of the people. A rusty slouched hat,
large enough to have fitted Daniel Webster, lay on the desk before him;
but a glance at that was not needed to convince me that his head held
more than the common share of brains. Though he is yet young--not
thirty-three--the reader has heard of him, and if he lives he will make
his name long remembered in our history."