human flesh and blood.

During those fiery and feverish days, every citizen of the loyal states
felt himself to be, in reserve at least, a possible soldier. It was
necessary to raise, drill, and render effective in an incredibly short
time a large army; and it would have been impossible to do so had it not
been for the eager enthusiasm with which civilians of every sort
enlisted, and threw themselves into their military duties with almost
incredible devotion. Garfield felt that he must bear his own part in the
struggle by fighting it out, not in the Senate but on the field; and his
first move was to obtain a large quantity of arms from the arsenal in
the doubtfully loyal state of Missouri. In this mission he was
completely successful; and he was next employed to raise and organize
two new regiments of Ohio infantry. Garfield, of course, knew absolutely
nothing of military matters at that time; but it was not a moment to
stand upon questions of precedence or experience; the born organizers
came naturally to the front, and Garfield was one of them. Indeed, the
faculty for organization seems innate in the American people, so that
when it became necessary to raise and equip so large a body of men at a
few weeks' notice, the task was undertaken offhand by lawyers, doctors,
shopkeepers, and schoolmasters, without a minute's hesitation, and was
performed on the whole with distinguished success.

When Garfield had organized his regiments, the Governor asked him to
accept the post of colonel to one of them. But Garfield at first
mistrusted his own powers in this direction. How should he, who had
hitherto been poring chiefly over the odes of Horace (his favourite
poet), now take so suddenly to leading a thousand men into actual
battle? He would accept only a subordinate position, he said, if a
regular officer of the United States army, trained at the great military