He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel, but by
the time his organization was completed he was
promoted to the Colonelcy.
At last the preliminary work was completed.
His men, an undisciplined body when he took
them in hand, had become trained soldiers, but
as yet they had not received what Napoleon III.
called the "baptism of fire." It is all very well
to march and countermarch, and practice the or-
dinary evolutions like militia-men at a muster,
but how was the regiment, how was its scholarly
commander likely to act in the field?

On the lith of December orders for the field
were received by Colonel Garfield's command,
stationed at Camp Chase.
Then came the trial of parting with wife and



190 BOTBOOn AND MANHOOJi OF

mother and going forth to battle and danger. To
his mother, whose highest ambition had been that
her son should be a scholar, it was doubtless a
keen disappointment that his settled prospects
should be so broken up; but she, too, was patriotic,
and she quietly said : " Go, my son, your life be-
longs to your country."

Colonel Garfield's orders were to report to
General Buell at Louisville. He moved his regi-
ment by way of Cincinnati to Catlettsburg, Ken-
tucky, a town at the junction of the Big Sandy
and the Ohio, and was enabled to report to hi9
commander on the 19th of December.
Then, for the first time, he learned what was
the nature of the duty that was assigned to him.
It was no less than to save Kentucky to the Union.
