History of Morgan's Cavalry Part 4

The condition of the Confederate troops was far better, in many respects, at this time, than at any subsequent period of the war.

There were, then, facilities and means for providing them with necessaries and comforts which more latterly did not exist. Provisions were abundant everywhere, and were regularly supplied.

The railroads, which were then, all in good repair and well provided with rolling stock, afforded sure means of supplying the troops which were stationed in those parts of the country through which they ran. The numerous navigable streams also afforded facilities, and practically shortened the routes of supply.

In all cases, however, in which neither the railways nor the rivers could be used to supply them, troops were compelled to depend for subsistence, in a great measure, upon the country immediately about their cantonments, and as they exhausted the surplus provisions in different neighborhoods, they would s.h.i.+ft their encampments. This was owing to the great lack of wheel transportation. It was very difficult to procure wagons, except by purchase or impressment from the citizens, and those so gotten were of course inferior. Much less inconvenience was subsequently experienced on this score, after they began to be manufactured in the Confederate and were captured in great numbers from the enemy. At this time, many articles such as sugar, coffee, etc., indispensable to the comfort and conducive to the health of troops in the field, were plentifully furnished-after the first year of the war they were known among us only by camp-fire traditions. The men rarely suffered, then, from the want of clothing, blankets, shoes, etc., even when the quartermasters could not furnish them, for they could obtain them from home, or purchase them, wherever they happened to be quartered, at reasonable prices. There was, perhaps, no regiment in the army which had not its full complement of tents; they were manufactured at Memphis, and other points, in numbers adequate to the wants of all the troops.

Cooking utensils, also, could be had in abundance-the marching commands suffered, not from the want of them, but from the lack of transportation for them. It is true that those which were furnished us were not of the kind and pattern which experience has prescribed as most fitting for military use, but they were capital subst.i.tutes for flat stones and forked twigs.

In the medical department there was an almost total lack of the necessary material. The supply of medicines in the South at the outbreak of the war was barely sufficient for the wants of the population at that time. Some medicines were run through the blockade from the North, in small quant.i.ties, during the spring and summer of 1861. But the supply thus obtained by no means met the demand. The volunteers collected together in camps and crowded cantonments, subjected to a sudden change of diet and mode of living, sickened in great numbers. Diseases which had never before, or but in rare instances, proven dangerous, now a.s.sumed alarming types. The systems of the patients may have been relaxed and their vitality partially impaired, during the early period of camp life, when they were just foregoing their old habits and were not yet hardened to the new, or it may be that when men are congregated in great numbers, certain diseases, by transmission from one to another, may be cultivated into extraordinary malignancy-at any rate a large proportion of the inmates of every camp sickened and many died. At Bowlinggreen in the winter of 1861 and 1862, the mortality was dreadful, measles, typhoid fever, pneumonia and diseases of the bowels, carried off a host of victims-every sickness, however, seemed fatal at that time.

There was, consequently, a great and constantly increasing need of medicines; and, perhaps, some waste of them, when they were collected in large quant.i.ties and s.h.i.+pped from point to point, was unavoidable. But all these problems, all the difficulties of properly supplying the army, began to be solved and modified, as the genius of adaptation and subst.i.tution was developed among the troops themselves. If a man could not get a blanket, he made an old carpet, cut to the proper size and lined on one side with a piece of strong cotton cloth, serve him instead. The soldier who lacked shoes bid defiance to the rough roads, or the weather, in a pair of ox-hide buskins, or with complicated wrappings of rags about his feet. I have known more than one orderly sergeant make out his morning report upon a s.h.i.+ngle, and the surgeon who lacked a tourniquet used a twisted handkerchief. Of the most necessary military material, arms and ordnance stores, there was the greatest scarcity. Perhaps one half of the entire western army (of all the troops in the department) were armed (at the time that General Johnson came) with shot-guns and squirrel rifles, and the majority of the other half with scarcely as serviceable flint-lock muskets.

The troops under General Bragg at Pensacola were perhaps better armed, but the rule held good with regard to the others. A few companies composed of young men from the cities, and of rich planters, were armed with fancy guns, Maynard rifles, etc., altogether unsuitable for the armament of infantry. In September of 1861, there were probably not one thousand Springfield and Enfield rifles in the army which General Johnson was trying to concentrate in Kentucky, and it was several months later before these unequaled weapons (the right arms for soldiers who mean to fight) could be supplied in numbers at all adequate to the need of them. In the advance to Bowlinggreen, more than three hundred able-bodied men of the Second Kentucky, and an equal, if not greater number of the Third Kentucky were left in the rear because arms could not be gotten for them. In November one or two regiments of the Kentucky brigade were given the Belgian in place of the flint-lock musket, and in December flint-lock guns, altered to percussion locks, were given the other regiments of the brigade. Proper accouterments were as scarce as guns. Cartridge-boxes, knapsacks, canteens, when they could be gotten at all, were very inferior. By great industry and effort, a considerable quant.i.ty of ammunition had been prepared and worked up into cartridges, but there was such a scarcity of lead and powder in the South, and such inferior facilities for the manufacture of the latter, that apprehension was felt lest, when the supply on hand was exhausted, it could not be replaced.

There was scarcely a percussion cap to be had (in the early part of the war) in the department, with the exception of some that were manufactured by an enterprising citizen of Nashville, and zealous Confederate, Mr. S.D. Morgan, an uncle of the General. But while so few of the Confederate soldiers were efficiently armed, almost every man of them, presuming that the Yankees were to be whipped in rough and tumble style, had his bowie-knife and revolver. The Arkansas and Texas troops, especially, carried enormous knives, that might have made a Malay's blood run cold, but in the end those huge weapons did duty far oftener as cleavers than as bayonets. The organization of the troops first put in the field was, of course, to some extent, imperfect. A good deal has been said about the evils of the system of electing officers, and much just censure has been pa.s.sed upon it. It has been claimed that it gives rise to a laxity of discipline, and a disposition on the part of officers, who owe their positions to the suffrages of the men they command, to wink at irregularities and pardon gross neglect of duty.

This is undoubtedly true, in a great measure, and what is stranger, but equally as true, is the fact that troops which have been longest in the service, which know best what qualities are necessary to const.i.tute a good officer, which appreciate perfectly the necessity of having good officers, not only to their efficiency and success in the field, but to their well-being at all times-just such troops seem least able to resist the temptation of electing some good-natured fellow, whom they will never respect, and will, perhaps, grow ashamed of, rather than men who will enforce their obedience, but promote alike their efficiency and their comfort. At all times they will look to and rely upon the good officer, but when they come to elect, the love of doing as they please, unchecked by the irksome restraints of discipline, is apt to make them vote for the man who will indulge them. But I believe that all those who observed these matters carefully will agree, that there was far less of this sort of feeling among the men who volunteered at the outbreak of the war than there was later.

The officers elected by the regiments first raised were, generally, about the best men that could have been selected. The men, at that time, in good faith, chose those they believed best qualified for the duties of command, and elected individuals who had manifested, or were thought to possess, courage, energy, and good sense. Of course some mistakes were made, and experience disclosed the fact, now well-established, that many men who figured respectably in times of peace, are unfitted for military responsibility, and weaken in the ordeal of military life.

No opportunity had been afforded then, for testing and discovering those qualified for positions of trust and importance-it was all a matter of experiment. Many injudicious selections were made, but it quite as often happened that the appointing system (as it was exercised at the beginning of the war) gave incompetent officers to the army. The graduates of West Point themselves, and even those officers who had served for years in the "Old Army," knew little or nothing of actual war. Their studies at the academy, and the reading appropriate to their profession, had instructed them in the theory of war.

They had the knowledge which the routine of camp and garrison duty teaches. Most of them had seen service in expeditions against the Indians on the Western plains. Some of them had served with distinction and benefit to themselves in Mexico, but this was an experience which they shared with many civilians. They had soldierly habits. They were well acquainted with, and knew the importance of the military etiquette and ceremonial so conducive to proper subordination and discipline, and without which neither can be maintained in an army. But beyond the necessity (permanently impressed upon them, and rendered a constant influence with them by long training and habit) of strictly obeying all the rules of discipline themselves, and of exacting the same obedience from others, they knew nothing which a quick mind, if endowed with a natural military apt.i.tude and appreciation of military essentials, can not readily acquire. While the regulations prescribed clear and excellent rules of organization, the strictest conformity was not always had to them, and it was sometimes difficult to strictly apply them. Companies sometimes overran the maximum in a way that rendered them as embarra.s.sing to the regiments in which they were placed, as they were painfully unwieldy to the unlearned Captains and Lieutenants who immediately commanded them.

When it was known that a very popular man was recruiting, the number of enlistments in his company was limited only by the number of able bodied men in his district who were inclined to enlist. As each volunteer had the right to select his Captain and company, and generally objected very decidedly to being transferred to any other, it was a delicate and difficult task to reduce these over-grown companies to proper proportions. Regiments frequently, on account of the popularity of their Colonels, or from other causes, swelled out of due bounds also. I knew one regiment, which in the early part of September, 1861, had in it seventeen companies and numbered, when all answered to roll call, more than two thousand men. There was at this time a very favorite, and very anomalous organization, known as the "Legion," which fortunately in a few months entirely disappeared. It was something between a regiment and a brigade, with all of a hybrid's vague awkwardness of conformation. It was the general supposition, too, for little was ever definitely known about it, that it was to be somewhat of an independent corps, something like the "Partisan Ranger" regiment of later date. When the army was in the first process of organization, these "Legions" could be heard of everywhere.

The idea doubtless originated with some officer who felt that he deserved a higher grade than that of Colonel, and could not obtain a Brigadier's commission.

As organization went on, and system prevailed, the "Legions," perhaps according to the merit of their commanders, or their numerical strength, sank into companies, were regularly organized as regiments, or were elevated into brigades. The brigades were from three to seven or eight thousand strong, and all arms of the service were represented in them; they included regiments of infantry and cavalry and batteries of artillery. It was in a measure necessary that this organization should be adopted, from the fact that for some months, each brigade commander was entrusted with supervision and defense of a large tract of territory, and it was impossible to dispense with either of the three arms. Divisions were not organized until late in the fall of 1861-the strength of the brigades was then, to some extent, equalized by the reduction of the larger ones; Army Corps were of still later creation.

A significant custom prevailed of denoting the companies of the first regiments which were raised, not by letter, but by some company denomination which they had borne in the militia organization, or had a.s.sumed as soon as mustered as an indispensable nom-de-guerre. They seemed to vie with each other in inventing t.i.tles of thrilling interest: "The Yellow Jackets," "The Dead Shots," "The Earthquakes," "The Chickasaha Desperadoes," "The h.e.l.l-roarers," are a few which made the newspapers of that day, in recording their movements, read like the pages of popular romance. So fondly did the professors of these appellations cling to them, that it was found almost as difficult to compel their exchange for the proper designations, as to effect far more hara.s.sing and laborious reforms. The spirit which prompted these particular organizations to adopt this method of distinguis.h.i.+ng and identifying themselves, remained to the last characteristic of the Southern troops. Regiments, especially in the cavalry service, were quite as often styled by the names of their commanders, as by the numbers which they properly bore, and, if the commanders were popular, the former method was always the most agreeable.

In the latter part of the war, after every effort had been made to do away with this feeling, it was at length adjudged expedient to enjoin such a designation of brigades, by the names of their commanders, by order from the War Department. This peculiar affectation was but one form in which the temper of the Southern people was manifested-a temper which revolted against complete loss of individuality, and was p.r.o.ne to self-a.s.sertion. It is a temper which ought to be characteristic of a free and high spirited people, which, while for prudential reasons it will consent to severe restraints, seeks to mark the fact that the restraint is self-imposed. Few will doubt, upon reflection, that this feeling could have been turned to better account in the Southern army; that to have allowed commands to win distinctive and honorable appellations by extraordinary bravery would have elevated the standard of morale, as much as did promotion for personal gallantry and good conduct. The excellence of a command mentioned in general orders might be only partially known, but the fame conferred by the t.i.tle of the "Stonewall Brigade" is universal. For the first year, there was, in the true sense of the word, no discipline in the Western army at all. The good sense and strong feeling of duty which pervaded the entire soldiery made them obedient, zealous, and tolerably patient. High courage and natural resolution made them fight well from the first, and, long exposure to the storms of battle taught them coolness in the midst of danger, and the comparative indifference to it, which become habitual with the veteran, and which are usually confounded with the effects of discipline, although they frequently exist where discipline has never obtained. A spirit of emulation induced them to readily learn the drill and all the more ostentatious duties of the soldier. A fort.i.tude which, until they were put to the test, they were not themselves aware of, enabled them to endure without diminution of spirit, great hards.h.i.+p and privation. Pride and patriotism, in the midst of every suffering and temptation, kept them true and patient to the last. While all these influences combined to make excellent soldiers of the material of which that army was composed, it will be nearer the truth to say, that there was, in the true sense of the word, no discipline in the Western army, not only in the first year of the war, but at any time during the War. The rigid method introduced by General Bragg undoubtedly told with good effect upon the men of least pride and mettle, and kept all such men nearer the mark, but for the rest, Bragg's discipline improved the army rather by its operations upon the officers than upon the men.

No man who has intimately known the Southern soldiery can escape the conviction, that, while capable of acquiring any degree of instruction, and, if the word may be used, veterans.h.i.+p, they can not really be disciplined, that is, be converted, by the infliction and fear of punishment, into unreasoning machines. If there were no other proof of this, the reflection which was invariably shed upon the morale and tone of every command by the personal character, prowess and skill of its particular leader, would be sufficient proof of it, and the fact that the Southern troops almost always read their chances of success or defeat, not in the odds opposed to them, but in the reputation and character of their commander-it would be as wide of the truth to call this discipline, as it would be to speak of the perfect discipline of the Norman knights, who would insult a cowardly and indolent Prince upon his throne, and would, yet, obey with "proud humility" an heroic adventurer.

While no practical soldier will underrate the value of discipline and the marvels it works-still the experience of the late war will make many officers believe that it is no match for native intelligence, zeal, and pride-when those qualities have become trained and used to the requirements of war. Instruction and skill in military duties, are indispensable, although discipline is not always so. Give the high strung young soldier who has brains and good blood, some practice and knowledge of actual warfare, and the unthinking automaton, formed by routine and punishment, can no more stand before him than a tree can resist the stroke of the lightning, than the book general and paper tactician can resist the genius which throws his plans out of gear, and his mind into convulsions.

It will be well for those who read Southern histories of the war to keep in mind that the writers mean, when they use the word "discipline," the pride which stimulated the soldiers to learn their duties rather than incur disgrace, and the subordination which proceeded from self respect, and respect for an officer whom they thought worthy to command them. It was not the fault of the Southern men who took the field, that the efforts of the Southern people failed to establish, for themselves, a separate and independent Government.

Two great mistakes were made at the outset and were never retrieved. Mistakes which have lost battles and campaigns innumerable, and in this instance lost a war. The vigor and irresistible audacity which is gained by "taking the start" was lost to us by the defensive policy, and our troops were scattered so widely that even an energetic defense could nowhere be made, except in Virginia. The Government did not ma.s.s the troops for attack upon vulnerable points in the enemy's territory, nor to fall upon some one of his invading columns. Not only was the defensive strictly maintained, but an effort was made to defend every inch of the border. In the face of superior forces concentrating for invasion at certain points, a skirmish line, which employed all of our forces, was thrown out to hold all points from Richmond to the Western prairies.

But one original and cardinal error gave birth to all the others. The Confederate Government failed to invoke the only spirit which could have done its bidding. It ought, with out delay, to have stimulated the ardor and turned loose the tremendous energies of revolution, and have made the people drunken with its inspiration. The time was propitious, the Government was just established and was popular, the people were, practically, unanimous, and were irretrievably committed to the movement-they had never seen hostile troops or been daunted by the sights of war. The presence of formidable armed foes might have aroused prudence, but when Sumpter fell and war became inevitable, there were no armies in the field on either side. When the first gun boomed, the Government ought to have taken advantage of the glow of enthusiasm which was as yet unchilled by any fear of the yet distant danger. It ought to have asked for powers which the people in their, then, thorough confidence in their leaders would have readily granted. They felt, that if the struggle was really for important principles and vital rights, it was better to make rulers of their own choice, omnipotent for a short time, than to run the risk of defeat which would cause them entire, and, perhaps eternal, loss of liberty. The leaders knew that the temper of the people could be relied on-that if frankly told that success could be achieved only by prompt and enormous efforts and sacrifices-the efforts and sacrifices would be made. They were made later, when instead of universal hope and enthusiasm, there prevailed a feeling of almost despair. The strategy of revolution is identical, in principle, with that of war-the side which ma.s.ses and marches fast wins. If, while it was yet a contest of peoples and not yet a conflict of armies, the entire white population of the South had been aroused, her territory converted into one vast camp, every male citizen between the ages of sixteen and sixty made a soldier, leaving to the President the power of exempting certain cla.s.ses, and not regulating by law a matter so essentially discretionary, and every dollar's worth of property had been pledged to the cause, how different might have been the result? All this could have been done in the then condition of public sentiment; not a dissentient voice would have been heard. It would have been far more popular than the "Conscript Act" was a year later, and that caused little complaint.

Let any man think of what might have been done in May, 1861, with all the men, which were subsequently in the Confederate army, arrayed and pressed on the front. If unarmed, they would have met opponents also unarmed. Men followed the armies in Missouri and picked up guns on the battle field, while the Government was rejecting regiments because it had not arms to give them. Subsequently it found arms easier to be gotten than men.

If Jefferson Davis had possessed one t.i.the of the unscrupulous ambition of which he has been accused, he would not now be the inmate of a prison. He could have made, with all ease his Government a dictatorate-or turning off the useless and clamorous Congress, as an inc.u.mbrance to a Government which (until the war was won) was an experiment, have ruled during the war with a "committee of public safety."

To excite the energies of the people to the utmost, and then direct and employ them by means of some such machinery, was the way to win. But he preferred to believe that the danger was not great. He would have died sooner than a.s.sume unconst.i.tutional power. The ardor of the people was rebuffed, and they sank into an apathy, from which they were awakened by terrible disasters, to find themselves encompa.s.sed by fierce and hostile armies.

CHAPTER V

In 1857, the company of volunteer militia called the "Lexington Rifles" was organized with John H. Morgan as Captain, it subsequently, upon the organization of the State-guard, became incorporated in that body. It was composed of the finest and most spirited young men of Lexington, and soon won a high reputation for proficiency in drill, and in all the duties taught in the camps of the State-guards, as well as for the intelligence and daring of its members.

From the hour of its organization the men of this company seemed to entertain the profoundest love and admiration for their Captain, and the influence and control they accorded him was not too strongly expressed in the words of their motto, which, written in large letters, framed and hung up in their armory, caught the eye of every visitor and announced, "Our laws the commands of our Captain."

It was with the forty-five or fifty men of this company who unhesitating followed his fortunes when he went to the Southern army, and a few other kindred spirits who immediately attached themselves to him, before he had won rank or fame, that Morgan began his career, and around them as a nucleus he gathered his gallant command. Although thoroughly Southern in sentiment, and frank to the last degree in its expression, the members of the company, with one or two exceptions, made no effort to go South until Captain Morgan signified his readiness to lead them, in this, as in all else, they awaited his decision and directions. The extreme illness of his wife, who died in July, 1861, required, during the early summer, his constant presence in Lexington, and he did not determine to act until after the troops, posted at Camp d.i.c.k Robinson and the Home guard organizations, began to give unmistakable evidences of hostility to all persons not "loyal."

When the order was issued for the disarming of the State-guard, Morgan determined to save his guns at all hazards. The State-guard was by this time virtually disbanded, many of its officers of high rank, elected under the impression that they were Southern men, had declared for the other side, and various other influences tended to cripple and demoralize it. An officer then, of that body, who decided to resist the edict, disarming his men and leaving them defenseless, in the reach of armed and bitter political opponents, could look for little backing from his comrades. His best chance was to make his way at once to the Confederate lines in Southern Kentucky. This Morgan resolved to do.

On Friday night, September 20, 1861, he confided to a few of his most reliable and trusted men his determination and plans, and taking the guns from the armory, loaded them into two wagons and started them out of Lexington on the Versailles road under a small guard. The men composing this guard left on such short notice that few of them had time to prepare and carry with them even necessary clothing, scarcely time to take leave of their families. They marched out of town with their cartridge-boxes belted on, their rifles on their shoulders, loaded, and their bayonets fixed. A regiment of Federal troops was encamped that night at the fair ground, about a mile from town, and many of the officers and men were in town at the time the guns were removed. In order to deceive as to his movements and lull any suspicion that might exist of his design to move the guns, Captain Morgan caused twelve or fifteen men to parade and tramp heavily about the armory for an hour or two after the wagons had been loaded and started, and so created the impression that his company was engaged in drilling.

The wagons were not stopped in the town, and only one soldier was encountered who was made prisoner by the escort, carried off some twenty miles, and then released.

Morgan accompanied the wagons for a short distance until it was apparent that there was no immediate danger to be apprehended, and returned to Lexington.

On the next day when it was ascertained that the guns had been taken away, and no trace of them could be discovered, a great excitement was gotten up. That very day had been appointed for their seizure by the authorities, and the authorities had been completely tricked and baffled.

The loyal citizens who had calculated upon witnessing the discomfiture of the "Rifles," and of all their backers, were disappointed, and had the farther mortification of learning that the wagons containing the coveted prizes had pa.s.sed the night before, in the sight of them all, to a place where they dared not follow. Of course many taunts were flung at the fooled spies, and disappointed patriots; and at length the angry discussions brought on a shooting affray between some of the "Rifles," and a part of the troops and Home-guards. The regiment stationed at the fair grounds, was brought into town to quell this affair, and two pieces of artillery were planted to sweep the princ.i.p.al streets-and from that date, for four years, Lexington was under military rule.

Captain Morgan, for whose arrest an order was immediately issued, communicated during the day with such of his men as desired to follow him, and at nightfall left Lexington with them and rejoined those who had gone before. He pa.s.sed through Anderson county to Nelson, and halted a few miles from Bardstown. Here he was joined by Captain John Cripps Wickliffe, subsequently Lieutenant Colonel of the Ninth Kentucky Infantry, and a very gallant officer. Captain Wickliffe had determined also to save his guns and take his company, or all that would follow him, to the Confederate army. The greater portion of his company, one of the finest in the State-guards, elected to go with him. Desirous, while about it, of doing a brisk business in guns, he confiscated those of a neighboring Home-guard company, and brought them to Morgan's camp-they were immediately placed in the hands of the unarmed men, who, finding an organized force making for the Confederate lines, attached themselves to it. Many such men, anxious to go South, but afraid to go without a leader, came to this camp during the four or five days that it was maintained.

On account of the kindness and liberality of the people who lived in that neighborhood, and who supplied its inmates with provisions of all kinds, this camp was ent.i.tled "Camp Charity," and long will it be remembered.

By the common wish and consent, Morgan took command of all the forces, and when, on Sat.u.r.day evening, September 28th, he resumed his march, he was at the head of some two hundred men. He encountered no enemy. The Home-guards, who mustered strong in the region through which he pa.s.sed, thought his force too formidable to attack and kept out of his path. When he would hear of two bodies of them, likely to give him trouble if united, he would pa.s.s between them and scare both.

After two days and nights hard marching, he reached Green river on Monday evening, September 30th. He received an enthusiastic welcome from the Confederate troops stationed there, most of whom were Kentuckians, and many of them knew him well.

Colonel Roger W. Hanson, the officer in command, was himself from Lexington, and was a warm personal friend of Morgan.

There were, at Green river, encamped on the Southern side of the stream, at this date, the Second Kentucky Infantry (Hanson's own regiment), six or seven hundred strong, Byrne's Battery, and four companies of Tennessee cavalry.

Colonel Thomas Hunt, an uncle of Captain Morgan, was also there with two companies of the regiment he was then organizing. Of all the general officers (he was made a General) which Kentucky gave to the Confederate service, least justice had been done by fame to Roger Hanson, and it is strange that such should be the case. Not only was he well known, constantly talked of, greatly loved, and ardently admired by the Kentuckians, but his name was familiar in all parts of the army. It is true that his early death blighted the reputation he was rapidly winning, but it is hard for those who knew him to understand how such a man could have failed to attract more general and more lively interest. While a very young man, he served with distinction in Mexico, returning home he indulged for a short period in an erratic career which astonished even the Kentuckians, and suddenly quitted it to beat all rivals at the bar, and become a leading politician. Friends and opponents agreed in p.r.o.nouncing him one of the most effective speakers in the State. His youth was too much occupied in more agreeable pursuits, to admit of his employing profitably the educational advantages which were offered him, but his mind, although unused to the discipline of study, mastered all that it grappled with. He read less and comprehended more law than any member of the profession in Kentucky. His vigorous native intellect and acute sense, were perhaps more formidable, for this reason. Want of science made his method of attack more original and irresistible. In the contests of the bar and the hustings, he was a sort of heavy armed partisan, his irregular, rapid onslaught crushed opposition. The learning and eloquence of his ablest antagonists availed little against his manly logic, and often sounded like the merest folly after having been subjected to his telling ridicule. All of his ideas seemed clearly defined; his mind was never in a mist. His insight into character was extraordinary, and he had the most remarkable faculty of accurate observation and life-like reproduction, especially of ludicrous traits and scenes. His command of humorous, graphic, forcible expression was unequaled. He had very many n.o.ble traits of character. He was candid and truthful to bluntness. His scorn of dissimulation and affectation of any sort, gave his manner and speech a bluffness, and apparent want of sympathy with the feelings of other men, which caused him often to be misunderstood. I believe that he would rather that the whole world should have thought him a scoundrel, than have seemed for one moment, in his own eyes, a hypocrite. His will was dauntless, his resolution inflexible, his courage high. He had little opportunity, during his military life, to show the stuff that was in him, and to prove that he possessed other qualities befitting an officer beside courage and the strictest attention to the instruction, the comfort, and the discipline of his men. Notwithstanding that he was a very strict disciplinarian-and Kentucky troops have little love of discipline-he was very popular with his men. They retaliated by nick-naming him "Bench-leg," or "Old flint-lock," and admired him all the more intensely, the more frequently that he showed them that they could never deceive him nor attempt it with impunity. Once, thinking that the health of his regiment was getting too bad, and that many cases of illness, reported as severe, were but ruses to escape doing duty, he published an order that from that date "there should be but two sick men at the same time in each company," and caused it to be rigidly enforced. No one who ever saw Hanson can forget him. In stature he was a little under the medium hight, and he was powerfully but ungracefully built. His bulky and ungainly form indicated great but awkward strength. His shoulders were huge, round, and stooping, and he sat on his horse in the att.i.tude in which a sick man bends over the fire. His head was large and perfectly round. His complexion was fair and florid, and his eyes gray and full of light. His strong and marked features, when he became excited, worked strangely and apparently without being moved by the same influences, and the alert movement of his head, at such moments, was in singular contrast to his otherwise heavy inactive manner. His face, when he was calm and giving careful attention to any thing said to him, wore a look of exceeding sternness, enhanced by a peculiar twitch of the muscles of the mouth and eye. He had a German face with all the Irish expressions. A wound received in a duel had shortened one leg and gave him a singular gait, something between a jerk and a roll. His voice was deep and guttural, and his utterance rapid, decided, abrupt, like that of a man who meant all that he said, and knew that it would produce an effect. No one could look him in the eye and fail to perceive that he was every inch a man-a strong, brave, manly nature looked out in every lineament of his face. Captain Wickliffe attached his company to the regiment which Colonel Hunt was organizing. Of the stragglers who had come out with Captain Morgan, some went one way and some another-only eight or ten remained with him. Although not yet in the Confederate service, he at once commenced the active and daring work which laid the foundation of his celebrity and brought him at once into general notice. The cavalry which had been stationed there previously to his coming, had confined themselves to doing picket duty, and had never sought or been required to do other service. This monotonous work, altogether devoid of excitement, did not accord with his nature, which demanded the stimulus of adventure; he, moreover, intuitively understood then, and declared the fact since so completely demonstrated, that cavalry can be employed to far better advantage, if kept well out upon the front or flanks of the army to which it belongs, and close upon the enemy, than by exacting of it the sort of duty which can just as well be performed by infantry. The Federal advanced forces were then stationed at Elizabethtown, and were soon pushed to Nolin Creek, distant about twenty-one or two miles from Munfordsville. Captain Morgan had at first not more than twenty mounted men of his own company, but with these and with volunteers from the other cavalry who were inspired by his example, he made frequent "scouts," and watched and reported every thing that transpired upon the front. These "excursions" were undertaken about four or five times in every week, and would usually occupy twenty-four hours. The scouting party would set out at or a little before dark; before reaching the lines of the enemy, some exciting chases would be had after the countrymen who were in Federal pay or sympathy, and who, always on the lookout for us, would start at break-neck speed for the camp of their friends, pursued by our foremost riders. At first they tried to do this courier duty on horseback, but finding that we were better mounted than they were, and that, when hard pressed and forced to take to the brush, their horses were abandoned for ever, they betook themselves to a less expensive mode of conveying information. They were fleet of foot and knew the paths through the thickets and hills perfectly, and it was difficult to follow and impossible to catch them. We, also, had many friends among the country people living near the enemy's camp, and as we would prowl all night around and among the Federal pickets and outposts, seeking to entrap the unwary, many were the secret conferences which we held in the shade of the woods with faithful informants, who generally closed their reports with emphatic adjurations that, "For the love of G.o.d," we would never breathe their names.

Once or twice Captain Morgan pa.s.sed himself as a Federal officer, in close vicinity to their camps, but this ruse could not be repeated often with success. Once we were guided safely out of a very dangerous situation by an intensely "loyal" man who thought he was a.s.sisting some friends who had lost their way. When day returned the scouting party would take a position on the "line of retreat" at a convenient but safe distance from the enemy, rest and refresh men and horses, observe closely if there was any unusual movement in the hostile lines, and as the day declined and it became evident that all was likely to remain quiet, it would return to camp. After the first two or three weeks of this sort of service, and its advantages had become apparent, an order was given to turn over to Captain Morgan some thirty "condemned" artillery horses. With a little care and nursing they were rendered tolerably fit for his purposes, and he was thus enabled to mount, the better part of his company. I knew a scout to be performed, with most of the men riding these same rejected horses, of sixty-eight miles in twenty hours. Although these scouts and expeditions were not nearly so exciting as were subsequent ones, when the cavalry of both armies had become more accustomed to them and more enterprising, yet they were very pleasant episodes in the dull tedious life of the camp, and excellent preparation for really hard and hazardous service. Morgan himself derived great benefit from the experience they gave him, for he rarely if ever missed them. He always knew how to direct and how to estimate the scouting duty of his command, one of the most important, by the practical knowledge thus acquired. Nor will it injure any man who is called upon to exercise the duties of a General to take a few lessons in this school. The fatigue and discomfort from want of sleep attending these expeditions to those who went constantly upon them, was almost as great, as that suffered in later and far more difficult service.

The first skirmish in which Morgan's company or any portion of it was engaged, was a very insignificant and bloodless one, and served only to ill.u.s.trate the character of the apprehensions which are apt to a.s.sail raw troops.

It was upon the second or third scout that Captain Morgan had taken, that we for the first time met the enemy. Contrary to the usual practice, the scouting party had started out early in the day; it consisted of some fifteen of Morgan's own company, twenty-five of the Tennessee cavalry, and ten or fifteen volunteers, about fifty in all. After proceeding some twelve miles in the direction of Nolin Creek, the advance of our party suddenly discovered a body of Federal infantry moving down the road toward us. Their bayonets glistening and just perceptible above a little rise three or four hundred yards off notified the videttes of their vicinity. They did not see us, and we immediately dismounted and posted ourselves in the thickets on both sides of the road, sending the horses to the rear under charge of eight or ten men. No plan of battle was adopted, although many were proposed-the various suggestions, however, that were thrown out, in the inspiration of the moment are lost to history. I remember, however, that one man gave it as his decided opinion, that we ought to charge them immediately on horseback, and he then rode rapidly back to Green river to report the situation to Colonel Hanson. Enjoining silence on the talkative, Captain Morgan went forward on foot to a house, about one hundred and forty or fifty yards in front of our position, and looked out from a window, which commanded a full view of their approach, upon the enemy. He saw a body of sixty or seventy, but this came so close upon him that he was compelled to leave the house before he could discover whether it was the advance of another and larger body, or was unsupported. Fortunately he effected his retreat from the house and rejoined his party without discovery by the enemy. The latter continued to march on, past the house, and toward our position, until, within forty or fifty yards of us, something discovered us to them and they halted. Captain Morgan immediately stepped out into the road, fired at and shot the officer riding at the head of the column. Without returning the fire his men fell back to the house before mentioned, situated on a long low knoll, through which, to the left of the house as we faced, was a cut of the railroad. This afforded a pretty good position and one which we should have taken ourselves. Here they deployed and opened a volley upon us, which would have been very fatal if we had been in the tops of instead of behind the trees. Both sides then continued to load and fire rapidly. With us, every man ought to have behaved well, for each acted upon his own responsibility. Captain Morgan with a few of the more enterprising, and one or two personal followers who always kept close to him, worked his way very nigh to the enemy, and did the only shooting that was effective. We had neither drill nor any understanding among ourselves. The fight was much like a camp-meeting, or an election row. After it had lasted about ten or twelve minutes, an intelligent horse-holder came up from the rear, breathless, and announced that the enemy was flanking us, and that he had been largely reinforced. The receipt of this important intelligence necessitated the withdrawal of the forces, and every man withdrew after his own fas.h.i.+on and in his own time. Our loss, was one man slightly wounded and several shot through the clothes. It was as b.l.o.o.d.y as an affair between Austrian and Italian outposts.

The horse-bolder who brought the information which led to our retreat, was evidently one who had carefully studied the military articles in the newspapers, and spoke from the influence of a sudden recollection of the "science" he had thus acquired, rather than from accurate observation. This may be safely a.s.serted, as we were not pursued by the enemy, and next day, upon returning, learned that they had commenced retreating about the same time that we did, and that they were but a scouting party like ourselves. Two or three men who got first to Green river, before Captain Morgan's report was received there, stated that we had encountered a strong Federal column advancing to drive our forces away from Woodsonville; that we had attacked, and after a hard fight checked it, but that unless Captain Morgan was immediately reinforced it would probably resume its march. This statement created much excitement at Woodsonville, and was generally credited. But Colonel Hanson treated the gentlemen who brought it rather roughly, and said (with an unnecessary reflection on a gallant arm of the service) that it was a "Cavalry Story."

Several days after this affair, Morgan made his first narrow escape of capture. Hanson determined to send a force to the Nolin outposts sufficiently strong to drive them in and create serious confusion and alarm in the Federal camps. He accordingly ordered the Major commanding the battalion of Tennessee cavalry, to take his entire force, about two hundred and forty men, and, conducted by Morgan, who went with twenty of his men, to make the attack upon the outposts. This force started about nightfall. Morgan thinking that there were now men enough upon the road to accomplish some of his most favorite plans, was in high spirits. His own men, who had never in their lives seen so much cavalry on the march, believed the column invincible.

The Tennesseeans who had long murmured at the inaction to which they had been condemned, were anxious for a fight. The Major arranged the plan with Captain Morgan-the latter was to get, with his twenty men, in the rear of the pickets on post, and then fire a gun. At this signal, the Major was to dash down with his battalion, and, picking up the pickets, charge down upon the base and reserve. In the meantime, Morgan expected to entertain the latter with an unlooked-for volley. It was proposed to push the plan as far as possible, even, if the first features were successfully and quickly executed, to an attack upon the camps.

But it happened that some five miles from Nolin, one of the country fellows, who was in the habit of running into the Federal lines at our approach, was surprised and arrested by Captain Morgan who was in the advance.