Although the preservation of the Union was the first thought that presented itself to the minds of the people, another and deeper impulse--the overthrow of slavery--filled their hearts and nerved their hands for the coming conflict. To his old pupil, Mr. Hinsdale, Garfield writes-- "My heart and thought are full almost every moment with the terrible reality of our country's condition. We have learned so long to look upon the convulsions of European States as things wholly impossible here, that the people are slow in coming to the belief that there may be any breaking up of our institutions; but stern, awful certainty is fastening upon the hearts of men. I do not see any way, outside a miracle of God, which can avoid civil war with all its attendant horrors. Peaceable dissolution is utterly impossible. Indeed I cannot say that I would wish it possible. To make the concessions demanded by the South would be hypocritical and sinful; they would neither be obeyed nor respected. I am inclined to believe that the sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission." Garfield, always as quick to act as to speak, immediately offered his services to Gov. Dennison, who at once sent him to Missouri to obtain five thousand stands of arms that General Lyon had placed there. These having been safely shipped to Columbus, Gov. Dennison then sent Garfield to Cleveland to organize the seventh and eighth regiments of Ohio infantry. He would have appointed him colonel of one of them, but Garfield, with his usual modesty, declined because he had had no military experience. He agreed, however, to take a subordinate position if he could serve under a West Point graduate. The governor then appointed him lieutenant-colonel, and commissioned him to raise a regiment from the Western Reserve. He hoped to have his old schoolmate, Captain Hazen, of the regular army, for colonel, but when the governor sent on for his transfer, General Scott refused to release him. Meanwhile, the Hiram students had laid aside their books, and flocked with patriotic ardor to the standard of their old leader. The greater part of this forty-second regiment, indeed, was made up of Campbellites, whose noble self-sacrifice in the days that followed will never be forgotten. When the regiment went into camp at Columbus it was still without a colonel. Again the governor begged Garfield to assume the command, and after repeated requests he finally consented. After making the decision, he wrote thus to a friend:--