s were that
Gen. Marshall, with his vastly superior force, would attack the two
bodies of soldiers separately, and crush them before a union could be
effected.

Gen. Buell explained how matters stood to the young colonel of
volunteers, and ended thus:

"That is what you have to do, Colonel Garfield--drive Marshall from
Kentucky, and you see how much depends on your action. Now go to your
quarters, think of it overnight, and come here in the morning and tell
me how you will do it."

In college Garfield had been called upon to solve many difficult
problems in the higher mathematics, but it is doubtful whether he ever
encountered a more knotty problem than this one.

He and Colonel Craven represented two little boys of feeble strength,
unable to combine their efforts, who were called upon to oppose and
capture a big boy of twice their size, who knew a good deal more about
fighting than they did.

No wonder the young colonel felt perplexed. But he did not give up. It
was not his way. He resolved to consider whether anything could be done,
and what.

My chief object in writing this volume being to commend its subject as
an example for boys, I think it right to call attention to this trait
which he possessed in a conspicuous degree. Brought face to face with
difficulty--with what might almost be called the impossible, he did not
say, "Oh, I can't do it. It is impossible." He went home to devise a
plan.

First of all, it was important that he should know something of the
intervening country--its conformation, its rivers and streams, if there
were any. So, on his way to his room he sought a book-store and bought
a rude map of Kentucky, and then, shutting himself up in his room, while
others were asleep, he devoted himself to a lesson in geography. With
more care than he had ever used in school, he familiarized himself with
the geography of the country in which he was to operate, and then set
himself to devise some feasible plan of campaign.

It was a hard problem, and required still more anxious thought, because
the general to whom he was to report it, was, unlike himself, a man
thoroughly trained in the art of war.

The next morning, according to orders, he sought again his commanding
officer.

Gen. Buell was a man of great reticence and severe military habits, and
if the plan were weak or foolish, as might well be from the utter lack
of experience of the young officer who was to make it, he would
unhesitatingly