ening of the 8th of January, when a spy enters
the camp of Marshall, with tidings that Cranor, with thirty-three
hundred (!) men, is within twelve hours' march at the westward. On
receipt of these tidings, the "big boy,"--he weighs three hundred pounds
by the Louisville hay-scales,--conceiving himself outnumbered, breaks up
his camp, and retreats precipitately, abandoning or burning a large
portion of his supplies. Seeing the fires, Garfield mounts his horse,
and, with a thousand men, enters the deserted camp at nine in the
evening, while the blazing stores are yet unconsumed. He sends off a
detachment to harass the retreat, and waits the arrival of Cranor, with
whom he means to follow and bring Marshall to battle in the morning.

In the morning Cranor comes, but his men are footsore, without rations,
and completely exhausted. They cannot move one leg after the other. But
the canal-boy is bound to have a fight; so every man who has strength to
march is ordered to come forward. Eleven hundred--among them four
hundred of Cranor's tired heroes--step from the ranks, and with them,
at noon of the 9th, Garfield sets out for Prestonburg, sending all his
available cavalry to follow the line of the enemy's retreat and harass
and delay him.

Marching eighteen miles, he reaches at nine o'clock that night the mouth
of Abbott's Creek, three miles below Prestonburg,--he and the eleven
hundred. There he hears that Marshall is encamped on the same stream,
three miles higher up; and throwing his men into bivouac, in the midst
of a sleety rain, he sends an order back to Lieutenant-Colonel Sheldon,
who is left in command at Paintville, to bring up every available man,
with all possible dispatch, for he shall force the enemy to battle in
the morning. He spends the night in learning the character of the
surrounding country and the disposition of Marshall's forces; and now
again John Jordan comes into action.

A dozen Rebels are grinding at a mill, and a dozen honest men come upon
them, steal their corn, and make them prisoners. The miller is a tall,
gaunt man, and his clothes fit the scout as if they were made for him.
He is a Disunionist, too, and his very raiment should bear witness
against this feeding of his enemies. It does. It goes back to the Rebel
camp, and--the scout goes in it. That chameleon face of his is smeared
with meal, and looks the miller so well that the miller's own wife might
not detect the difference. The night is da