"At Pittsburg Landing one night in 1862 there was a rush for rations by
some newly-arrived troops. One strong, fine-looking soldier presented a
requisition for a barrel of flour, _and, shouldering it, walked off with
ease_. When the wagon was loaded, this same man stepped up to Colonel
Morton, commanding the commissary steamers there, and remarked, 'I
suppose you require a receipt for these supplies?' 'Yes,' said the
Colonel, as he handed over the usual blank; 'just take this provision
return, and have it signed by your commanding officer.' 'Can't I sign
it?' was the reply. 'Oh, no,' said the affable Colonel Morton; 'it
requires the signature of a commissioned officer.' Then came the remark,
that still remains fresh in the Colonel's memory: 'I am a commissioned
officer--I'm a brigadier-general, and my name is Garfield, of Ohio.'"

For four months James remained connected with the canal-boat. To show
that traveling by canal is not so free from danger as it is supposed to
be, it may be stated that in this short time he fell into the water
fourteen times. Usually he scrambled out without further harm than a
good wetting. One night, however, he was in serious pain.

It was midnight, and rainy, when he was called up to take his turn at
the bow. The boat was leaving one of those long reaches of slack-water
which abound in the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal. He tumbled out of bed
in a hurry, but half awake, and, taking his stand on the narrow platform
below the bow-deck, he began uncoiling a rope to steady the boat through
a lock it was approaching. Finally it knotted, and caught in a narrow
cleft on the edge of the deck. He gave it a strong pull, then another,
till it gave way, sending him over the bow into the water. Down he went
in the dark river, and, rising, was bewildered amid the intense
darkness. It seemed as if the boy's brief career was at its close. But
he was saved as by a miracle. Reaching out his hand in the darkness, it