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114 • part 4: the war in 1862 having been sent to the south and many of the militia having disappeared), but I do not feel discouraged. Let me have what force you can. [Major General George B.] McClellan, as I learn, was at Charlestown on Friday last. There may be something significant in this.You’ll observe, then, the impossibility of saying how many troops I will require, since it is impossible for me to know how many will invade us. I am delighted to hear you say that Virginia is resolved to concentrate all her resources , if necessary, in defense of herself. Now, we may look for war in earnest! Let the idea of selecting desirable positions for individuals be ignored and merit be the basis of the reward and everything subordinate to the success of our cause. If you were not so invaluable in Richmond I would like to have you here, but you can serve the country better in Richmond than in the field. I trust that General Lee will be secretary of war.You ask me for a letter respecting the Valley. I am well satisfied that you can say much more about it than I can and in much more forcible terms. I have only to say this, that if the Valley is lost, Virginia is lost. Very truly, your friend, t. j. jackson P.S.—I do not understand why it is that when I ask for an engineer officer, whose services are much needed, and go so far as to name the person to be commissioned, that it is not done at once. The enemy are active and industrious, and we must be so too, if we expect to succeed. 10 My Campaign in East Kentucky James A. Garfield, Brigadier General, U.S.V., and President of the United States the following account of General Garfield’s brilliant operations in Kentucky, by which that state was held to her moorings in the Union, was written as data for a life of him, which I wrote in 1880. It is printed exactly as it was originally written, excepting in the opening paragraph, which the general began in the first person singular and then changed to the third person. It is now first published. Edmund Kirke • • • 04.101-196_Cozz 12/2/03, 8:47 AM 114 James A. Garfield was appointed lieutenant colonel of U.S. Volunteers August 14,1861,and was mustered into the service on the twenty-first of the same month. His regiment was not at that time raised, as it was then the practice to appoint field officers to recruit regiments. He preferred to be a lieutenant colonel, if he could have a graduate of the Military Academy as colonel. He immediately reported for duty to Brigadier General Charles E.Hill,commander of Camp Chase, near Columbus,Ohio,and entered upon camp duty— attended the drills and studied the tactics.By the aid of blocks to represent companies , officers and noncommissioned officers, he thoroughly mastered the infantry tactics in his quarters, and attended and participated in the drills in camp. It is remarkable with what facility the American mind adapts itself to situations, and this has never been so strikingly illustrated as in the great movements of 1861, which transformed in so short a time so great a multitude of young men from the unlimited independence of American citizens to the willing but severe restraints of military discipline. Colonel Garfield, writing to a friend at that time, said, I have had a curious interest in watching the process in my own mind, by which the fabric of my life is being demolished and reconstructed, to meet the new condition of affairs. One by one my old plans and aims, modes of thought and feeling, are found to be inconsistent with present duty, and are set aside to give place to the new structure of military life. It is not without a regret almost tearful at times that I look upon the ruins. But if, as the result of the broken plans and shattered individual lives of thousands of American citizens, we can see, on the ruins of our old national errors,a new and enduring fabric arise,based on larger freedom and higher justice, it will be a small sacrifice indeed. For myself, I am contented with such a prospect, and, regarding my life as given to the country, am only...

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