On the 5th, the command under General Morgan, in person, moved to Liberty, which the enemy had by this time evacuated. Scouts and pickets were thrown out, but although the enemy were reported to be still at Alexandria in large force, there was no collision even with his videttes. After remaining at Liberty a few hours, General Morgan withdrew, moving about ten o'clock at night, to Smithville again. He had no desire to attack the enemy, if in any such force as he was represented to be, nor was he willing to await an attack in the then condition of his command. A report, too, had reached him, which turned out to be unfounded, that McMinnville had been taken, that afternoon, by another expedition from Murfreesboro'.

We remained at Smithville until the 7th, and then returned to Liberty, in accordance with orders from General Wheeler, who had reached Alexandria on the same evening, with Wharton's division. Two or three days subsequently, General Wheeler proceeded to Lebanon with all of the troops at his disposal, and sending, thence, five hundred men to La Vergne, under Lieutenant Colonel Ferril, of the Eighth Texas, to intercept and capture railroad trains, he moved with the remainder of his forces to the "Hermitage," on the Nashville and Lebanon pike, twelve miles from Nashville. Here he left all of his command, except one regiment, to repel any advance from Nashville—and proceeded with that regiment and two or three pieces of artillery to the river—distant about four miles—and fired across it with artillery at a train of cars, knocking the engine off the track. No movement was made by the enemy from Nashville, and on the same evening General Wheeler returned to Lebanon. The next day, the party sent to La Vergne returned also. Colonel Ferril had captured a train, taking a number of prisoners, released some men of our division captured at Snow's hill and on their way to Nashville, and he had gotten, besides, nearly forty thousand dollars in greenbacks—Quartermaster's funds. This money, General Wheeler appropriated to buying fresh horses for the men who had captured it.

General Wheeler remained at Lebanon three days. During that time, the enemy advanced once from Murfreesboro', but retreated before reaching our pickets. Upon our return from Lebanon, a portion of the forces, only, were sent to Alexandria; more than half, under command of General Wheeler, passed through Rome, to the immediate vicinity of Carthage. Remaining here during the night, General Wheeler, just at daylight, fell back toward Alexandria, reaching that place about 1 or 2 p.m. Wharton's division was again encamped here, and Morgan's division, under my command, was sent to Liberty, except Smith's regiment which was stationed near Alexandria.

General Morgan on the night of the 5th, had returned to McMinnville, and had not since rejoined us. Two or three days after this, the enemy moved out from Carthage, so far as New Middleton, ten miles from Alexandria, where General Wheeler attacked them and drove them back to Carthage. On the 19th or 20th, the enemy advanced upon McMinnville with a strong force of infantry, cavalry and artillery. There was no cavalry force at the place at all, except General Morgan's escort (forty or fifty strong), but there was some ninety infantry, under command of Major Wickliffe of the Ninth Kentucky infantry, stationed there. After a good deal of preliminary reconnoitering and some skirmishing with the men of the escort, the enemy's cavalry dashed into the town, eight abreast, driving out General Morgan and several officers, who happened to be collected at McMinnville upon sick leave, or on special duty of some sort. Among them were Colonel Cluke, Lieutenant Colonel Martin, and Major McCann. Exchanging a few shots with the cavalry, this party retreated upon the Sparta road—McCann's horse was shot in the melee and fell, bringing him to the ground. He sprang to his feet and standing in front of the charging column, shouted "You have got the old chief at last," seeking to produce the impression that he was General Morgan and so favor the latter's escape. He was ridden over, severely sabered, and captured; but having been placed in an old stable, and allowed a canteen of apple brandy, he got the guard drunk and dug out under the logs, during the night, effecting his escape. Lieutenant Colonel Martin received a bad wound through the lungs, but sat on his horse and escaped. All of the others escaped uninjured. The infantry retreated, in perfect order, to the mountains two or three miles distant. The enemy pursued, but were driven back by the volleys given them whenever they pressed closely.

When the news of this affair reached General Wheeler's headquarters, General Wharton urged that the entire force should be withdrawn from Alexandria and Liberty, and concentrated at Smithville. He believed that the enemy, in withdrawing from McMinnville, would come by Liberty—the infantry moving through Mechanicsville, and the cavalry through Smithville. This route, they might calculate, would remove them from all danger of molestation by any infantry force sent after them from our army, and would bring them right upon the flank of our cavalry, which could annoy their rear if they retreated through Woodbury, but would, perhaps, be driven off by the movement upon Liberty. Then, a good pike conducted them to Murfreesboro', and their cavalry, coming on from Smithville, protected their rear.

A concentration of our whole force at Smithville, would not only make us secure, but would enable us to punish the cavalry severely, if the movement was made as Wharton anticipated. We remained, however, in the same positions, picketing and scouting vigilantly. The enemy moved exactly as Wharton had foreseen that they would do, and the troops at Liberty fell back to Alexandria, whence, both divisions retreated across Caney Fork, to Buffalo valley.

The road by which we moved was a rough and bad one, and the ford at which we crossed, execrable, making it a tedious affair. A demonstration was made, on the same day, from Carthage, but too late to interfere with our retreat. Morgan's division, during these operations, on account of heavy detachments having been made from it, and pretty heavy straggling, was very much reduced.

During a week or ten days' stay in Buffalo valley, the stragglers were collected and the regiments were gotten into pretty good order again. Cluke's, Chenault's, and Morgan's regiments were still stationed upon the Cumberland, in Wayne, Clinton and Cumberland counties. The latter regiment was driven away from Celina, some time in the early part of May; it had been posted there to protect the collection of commissary stores for Wheeler's corps. After taking the town of Celina, the Federal forces burned it and took position along the Cumberland, on the northern side, confronting our forces on the southern. Pegram's brigade was also stationed at Monticello, in Wayne county, Kentucky. It was attacked and driven away on the 28th of May. General Morgan after these affairs occurred, was ordered to move with his division to Wayne county, and drive the enemy from the region south of the Cumberland; or if he found him too strong to be driven, and he manifested an intention (which was somewhat feared) of pressing into East Tennessee, to at least retard his advance.

When General Morgan reached Monticello, which the enemy had evacuated shortly after the affair with Pegram, he found Cluke, with his own regiment and Chenault's, lying in front of a superior Federal force in Horseshoe bottom on Greasy creek, in the western end of Wayne county. Cluke had been skirmishing with them for two or three days. General Morgan sent couriers to hasten the march of his other regiments—the Second, Third, Fifth and Sixth Kentucky, and Ninth Tennessee, and of his artillery.

Notwithstanding that the utmost expedition was used, we did not arrive upon the ground until after 3 p.m., although the order arrived at 9 or 10 a.m. During the day, Cluke and Chenault were fighting with the enemy, at intervals, neither losing nor gaining ground. When we arrived, these regiments had almost entirely expended their ammunition, and averaged but two cartridges per man. The rough road over which we had marched, and the rapidity with which the march was made, had not only caused the Artillery to be left far in the rear, but had told severely on the column. Several horses dropped dead. Many gave out so completely that they had to be left. The strength of the five regiments was reduced to eight hundred men, when they arrived upon the field.

One instance of uncommon gallantry, upon the part of a private soldier—Theodore Bybee of Company C, Second Kentucky—ought to be related. His horse fell dead beneath him, and he caught the stirrup of a comrade, and ran thus eight or ten miles to the scene of the fighting. As soon as we arrived, General Morgan ordered us to form for attack. No one in the command was familiar with the ground, and the disposition of the line was made with reference only to what could be seen.

On the left of our position, was a deep ravine, with which the road ran parallel, and about one hundred yards distant. The whole ground was covered, in every direction, with thick timber, except for perhaps ten or fifteen acres directly in front of the line formed by Cluke's and Chenault's regiments. In this open space, which was an old field and orchard, and nearly square, was situated a small house. Just on the other side of it, and in the edge of the woods, the enemy were posted. The road ran through the center of it, and, immediately after entering the woods at the northern extremity, turned to the left, crossing the ravine.

The mistake General Morgan made in supposing that the road continued to run straight, and thus inducing him to make no inflection of his line on the right of the road, toward the enemy's left flank, prevented his capturing a good many prisoners, and perhaps the enemy's artillery. Cluke's and Chenault's regiments were, together, not more than three hundred and fifty strong, upon the field. The Fifth Kentucky, and Ninth Tennessee were formed about one hundred yards in the rear of Cluke and Chenault, and were placed under command of Colonel Smith. The Third and Sixth Kentucky, were formed about two hundred yards in the rear of Colonel Smith's line and a little further to the right. The Second Kentucky, and Colonel Morgan's regiment, which had also arrived, were held in reserve, the former on foot, the latter mounted. All of the horses were placed on the left of the road. Just as these dispositions were completed, the enemy opened upon us with two pieces of artillery, which did no damage, except to the horses, several of which were killed. As no artillery had been used previously, General Morgan thought that its appearance upon the field betokened the arrival of reinforcements to the enemy, perhaps in considerable numbers, and he thought, for a moment, of withdrawing his troops. In this view, every officer about him at the time, concurred, except Colonel Morgan.

A few seconds of time elapsing, it was demonstrated that before we could retreat, we would be forced to repulse the enemy. At the roar of the guns, they came charging across the open ground, yelling like devils, or rebels. The crash of musketry, for a minute, in the limited space, was quite heavy. Cluke's line quickly discharged all of its ammunition, and then gave back before the enemy's determined rush, without, however, losing its formation, or any of the men turning their faces from the enemy. These two regiments were exceedingly reliable in battle.

After this line had backed some twenty-five paces, Smith's line came to its support, and the men in the latter, passing through the intervals between the files of the former, poured into the faces of the Federals, at that time almost mingled with the men of Cluke's and Chenault's regiments, a volley which amazed and sent them back. As our line pressed after them across the open ground, the artillery, only a short distance off, told severely on it and continued its fire until our foremost were close upon the guns.

The enemy made a stand at the point where the road crosses the ravine, to enable the guns to escape, but the Third and Sixth Kentucky coming up, they were again driven. So dense was the woods, that pursuit was almost impossible. Colonel Morgan dashed down the road, but secured only a few prisoners. The enemy conducted the retreat with the most perfect coolness. About three hundred yards from the point where the last stand was made, one company halted and picketed the road, while all the rest (as we afterward ascertained) continued to rapidly retreat to the river. Our loss in this skirmish, which lasted about half an hour, was, in the first brigade, ten killed and sixteen wounded, and in the second five or six killed and wounded. The enemy lost, I believe, twenty-one killed, and a smaller number of wounded. His loss was in all, as nearly as I remember, thirty-one or two. Very few prisoners were taken. General Morgan, despairing of being able to surround or rush over the enemy, in the rugged, wooded country, sent a flag of truce, proposing a surrender. Captain Davis, Assistant Adjutant General of the first brigade (who bore the flag), was detained until communication could be had with Colonel Jacobs, who commanded all the United States forces in that immediate region. Colonel Jacobs was some distance off, on the other side of the river, and it was growing dark. General Morgan sent another message, demanding the release of Captain Davis, and declaring his intention of advancing as soon as that was done. Immediately upon the return of Captain Davis, the column was moved forward. The pickets saluted the advance guard with a volley, and gracefully fell back, and although we pressed on close to the river, we saw nothing more of them. As late as the close of the war, no answer had been received from Colonel Jacobs, although that officer was distinguished for his courtesy as well as gallantry.

The division remained on the line of the Cumberland, picketing from Stagall's ferry to Celina for nearly three weeks. The headquarters of the first brigade was at Albany, county seat of Clinton county, that of the second at Monticello, county seat of Wayne. In that time the ranks filled up again, nearly all absentees, with or without leave, returning. The horses were grazed on the rich grass and carefully attended to, and got in excellent condition again. Several scouting expeditions were undertaken, during this period, against the enemy on the north side of the river, the most successful of which were under command of Captain Davis and Captain Thomas Franks, of the Second Kentucky. Each of these officers, with two companies, penetrated far into the enemy's lines, and attacking and routing the forces that they met, with small loss to themselves, brought off prisoners, horses, and captured property of various kinds. These expeditions were not only of essential use in annoying the enemy, but were absolutely necessary to the maintenance of a proper spirit and energy among our men, whose morale and discipline were, invariably, sensibly impaired by an indolent and monotonous life.

This period of the history of Morgan's cavalry has been generally esteemed one of entire inaction, upon the part of both leader and men. It is true that nothing was done in all this period, which would at all compare with the dashing, enterprising career of the previous year. But a great deal of useful, if not brilliant service, was performed, and a vast deal of hard work was cheerfully gone through with. The public had become so accustomed to expect "raids" and "dashes" from Morgan, that they thought his command idle and useless, when engaged in the performance of regular routine duty. It should be remembered that, at the very time when Morgan's division was thought to be so inactive, it was constantly occupied with exactly the kind of service at which the other cavalry, except Forrest's, were always engaged.

During the winter and spring of 1863, and until nearly the middle of the summer, our command was guarding and picketing a long front, and scouting thoroughly a great extent of country besides. For six months the country about Liberty, Alexandria and Lebanon, and that about Monticello and Albany, was in a great measure committed to Morgan's care. This gave him a front of quite one hundred and fifty miles to watch and guard, and at least half of the time he had to do it single-handed. Then there was a great portion of Middle Tennessee, and of Southern, Central and Eastern Kentucky, which his scouts constantly traversed. It is fair to say that from January to July 1863, inclusive, the period of the supposed inaction, during which time Morgan made no "raid," nor achieved any very brilliant success, that in all that time, our division was as constantly serving, fought and won as many skirmishes, guarded and scouted as great an extent of country, captured as many prisoners, and gave the Confederate Government as little trouble on the subject of supplies, as any other cavalry division in the Confederate army.

But, in this year, the glory and the prestige began to pass away from the Southern cavalry. It was not that their opponents became their superiors in soldiership, any more than in individual prowess. Although the Federal cavalry had greatly improved, had become formidable for its enterprise and fighting capacity, it can yet be said that the Confederate cavalry, when in proper condition, still asserted its superiority upon every field where there was an equality of forces. But it was daily becoming more and more difficult to keep the Confederate cavalry in good condition. An impression prevailed, no doubt a correct one, that as for the great efforts of war, the infantry was so much more useful and necessary, a far greater care ought to be taken of it than of the cavalry; and, then, an idea obtained that, inasmuch as our cavalry supplied itself so often, and occasionally so well, by its own captures, it ought to do so all the time. A corollary resulted from these two propositions, which played the wild with the cavalry, viz: that it was highly improper to issue anything which the Government had to furnish to that arm of the service. So it happened that, while to the cavalry were entrusted the most responsible and important duties, scarcely any encouragement or assistance was afforded it; and, on the contrary, a tone and conduct were adopted toward it apparently expressly intended to disgust it. I speak in reference to Western cavalry and Western affairs altogether, for I served at no time with the Army of Northern Virginia, and know nothing of it but the bare outline of its glorious and unequaled record. Cavalry officers, after long and arduous service, and a thorough initiation into all the mysteries of their craft, were rewarded and encouraged by having some staff officer, or officer educated to shoot heavy artillery, run steamships, or mix chemical preparations, promoted over their heads; and were expected to be delighted with him, although he might not practically know whether a horse-shoe was put on with nails or with hooks and eyes, and whether pickets were posted to look out for an enemy, or to show Brigadier-Generals the way to their headquarters when they were lost.

Cavalry which was expected to be constantly engaging the enemy, and upon whose efficiency and success a vast deal depended, were grudgingly provided with or altogether denied arms and ammunition, unless they could be captured from the enemy. Hard and constant as was the service the cavalryman performed, exposed as he was to the severity of all sorts of climate, without shelter, and often without the means of building the fire which stood him in stead of tent, and sometimes had to furnish him the strength and cheer of the food he lacked, he was yet snubbed mercilessly, and Generals commanding stared aghast if he presumed to ask for anything. The infantryman, lying snug and idle in camp, was given his blanket and his tent, good clothing (if it could possibly be had) and stout shoes (I speak, of course, in a Confederate sense); all was done for him to get him in condition for the day of battle; they fattened him for the sacrifice. But the cavalryman, had it not been for his own exertions, and the energy with which he indemnified himself for his Government's neglect of him, would not have been worth killing. When I reflect upon the privations I have seen the men endure, and remember that they well knew that there was no escape from them, except by taking what they wanted wherever they found it; and remember, further, the chances that were offered, I am lost in astonishment at their honesty and forbearance. I am aware that our "distant brethren" of the North, or those, rather, who will be our brethren, it is inferred, when an amendment to the Constitution decides who and what we are—it is a matter perfectly well understood that they will concede no such honesty to us, and naturally enough. It is a stale, but all the more certain-on-that-account fact, that they have discovered that "the earth belongs to the saints," and that they "are the saints." Therefore, to take anything (upon this continent, at least), in any manner, is to rob the "saints;" and, while a man may pardon a fellow who robs his neighbor, it is not in reason that he should forgive the rogue who robs him.

One special cause of the degeneracy of the Southern cavalry, in the latter part of the war, was the great scarcity of horses and the great difficulty of obtaining forage within the Confederate lines, and consequently, of keeping the horses which we had in good condition. Morgan's men had the reputation, and not unjustly, of procuring horses with great facility and economy. Adepts as we were, in the art of "horse-pressing," there was this fact nevertheless to be said in favor of the system which we adopted: while making very free with the horse-flesh of the country into which we would raid, there was never any wanton waste of the article. We did not kill our tired stock, as did the Federal commanders on their "raids," when we got fresh ones. The men of our command were not permitted to impress horses in a friendly country. It is true that horses were sometimes stolen from people who were most devoted to our cause, and who lived within our lines, but such thefts did not often occur, and the perpetrators were severely punished. The witty editors of Yankee-land would doubtless have explained our rebuke of this practice, by an application of the old saying that "there is honor among thieves," which would have been very just and apposite. The difference between our thieves and those on the other side was, that the latter were entirely destitute of every sort of honor. General Morgan took fresh horses to enable his command to make the tremendous marches which ensured so much of his success, and to prevent his men from falling into the hands of the enemy, but he hedged around the practice with limitations which somewhat protected the citizen. He required that, in every instance where a man desired to exchange his tired horse for a fresh one, he should have his horse inspected by his company commander, who should certify to the condition of the horse and the necessity of the exchange. If the company commander certified that his horse was unfit for service, the man obtained from his regimental commander permission to obtain a fresh one, which had also, before it was valid, to be approved by the brigade commander. Whenever it was practicable, the exchange was required to be made in the presence of a commissioned officer, and, in every case, a horse, if the soldier had it, was ordered to be left in the place of the one impressed. When a man was without a horse, altogether, his company commander could impress one for him. No doubt, this seems to the unmilitary reader, only systematic robbery—but is not that going on all the time, all over the world? Is it not, too, a great comfort to the citizen, to know that (when he is robbed), there are laws and the "proper papers" for it!

When men or officers were detected with led horses, they were punished, and the horses were taken away from them, unless they could prove that they were entitled to them. Morgan's men were habitually styled "horse-thieves" by their enemies, and they did not disclaim the title—I should like to see a statistical report showing the number of horses stolen in Kentucky by the respective belligerents—we would lose some laurels. The Confederate Government could not, and did not attempt to supply the cavalry of its armies with horses. The cavalry soldier furnished his own horse, and (if he lost him), had to make the best shift he could for another. The cavalryman was not subjected to the rigid discipline of the infantryman, for the reason that he was harder to catch. It is more difficult to regulate six legs than two. For the very reason that it was outside of the pale of regular discipline and the highest military civilization, it was more necessary to give to the cavalry officers who practically understood that sort of service, as well as were men of controlling character. Such men could make of the cavalryman, a soldier—with an inferior officer or one who was awkward at cavalry business over him, he became an Ishmael.

There existed among the infantry, not exactly a prejudice against cavalry (for they all wanted to join it), but that sort of feeling against it, which is perhaps natural upon the part of the man who walks against the man who rides. When the "web-feet" called us "buttermilk rangers," we did not get angry with them, for we knew that they were gallant fellows and that much walking tries the temper—but we did not admire the official prejudice against us, and thought an affected contempt of our arm in very bad taste, upon the part of Generals who not only never won battles but who never tried to win them.

In the spring and summer of 1863, supplies could be obtained for neither men nor horses of the cavalry of Bragg's army, without the greatest difficulty and great oppression of the citizens. It was not the custom to issue (out of army supplies), rations to the men, or forage to the horses of the cavalry commands—they were required to provide for themselves in these respects. It was impracticable, too, to supply them from the stores collected for army use. Certain regions, therefore, in which, for the proper protection of the lines, it was absolutely necessary to keep large bodies of cavalry—sections of country not fertile and at no time abounding in supplies—were literally stripped of meat, grain and every thing edible. All that would feed man or horse disappeared, as if a cloud of Titanic and omniverous locusts had settled upon the land—and after the citizens were reduced to the extremity of destitution and distress, the soldiers and their horses suffered, also, with slow famine.

One instance of the kind will serve to show how destructive of the efficiency of cavalry was service under such circumstances. When the division was ordered to Wayne and Clinton counties, Kentucky, the Ninth Kentucky, one of the best regiments in the cavalry of the West, was sent to Woodbury to picket that immediate section of country. For many miles around this little place, the country had been exhausted of provisions and forage by the constant requisition upon it during the winter and spring. The men of the Ninth Kentucky suffered severely for want of rations, but they esteemed their own sufferings lightly, compared with those of their horses. Long forage (oats, fodder, etc.) could not be procured at all; and corn had to be hauled a distance of over thirty miles, from a region whence other cavalry commands were also drawing supplies of forage, or else it could only be gotten from Tullahoma out of the forage stored there for army consumption. Consequently, corn was rare at that time at Woodbury; two or three ears per day to each horse was the usual issue. Upon some days none was issued. Every blade of grass in the vicinity of the camp was eaten, and the trees were barked by the poor animals as high as they could reach.

The men stood picket on foot; all of the stock was rendered utterly unserviceable, and one fourth of it died. By such usage (necessary, however,) this regiment was made unfit for active and efficient service for months, and its discipline and morale were seriously, although only temporarily, impaired. More than half—at any rate, a large proportion of the cavalry of General Bragg's army were suffering, at that time, precisely as this regiment was. In this condition of things is to be found the explanation of the apparent degeneracy of the Confederate cavalry, in the latter part of the war.

Another fact, too, should not be lost sight of. In common with every other arm of the service, our cavalry became very greatly reduced in numbers as the war wore on. We could not fill up our regiments as easily as the Federals could fill their wasted organizations. Those who wonder why well known Confederate regiments, brigades, and divisions did not accomplish as much in the latter as in the early part of the war, do not know, or do not reflect, that it was because they were reduced to a fourth or a fifth of their original strength. This, however, was not the case at the period of which I write. It was, too, in the summer of 1863 that serious doubt of the successful establishment of Southern independence began to gain ground among the masses of the Southern people; and a lukewarmness first, and next a feeling almost of disaffection to the Confederate Government and cause widely prevailed. This indifference was very unlike the strange absence of anxiety and solicitude about the result of the war, which characterized its early stages. The latter feeling proceeded from a blind and overweening confidence, and those who entertained it were not the less intensely patriotic and devoted to the cause. Nor was this species of disaffection, which began to influence so many, characterized by the slightest tendency toward treachery or renegadeism. Hundreds of citizens, who were fiercely opposed to the administration, and cordially disliked Mr. Davis, who had even lost much of their interest in the Confederate army and its fortunes, nevertheless hated the Northern people, the Federal Government, and the invading army, with a hatred immeasureably more thorough, rabid, and ineradicable, than at the beginning of the war, ere they knew practically what invasion was like. With a strange inconsistency, these men would have done any thing to have injured the enemy, even when averse to making further sacrifices for the benefit of the Confederacy. So far from renegading and pandering to Federal rule and success, the large majority of this class would have pawned their souls for power to crush the Federal arms. This is why the Southern renegade is regarded by the Southern people with loathing, scorn, and hatred, burning and inextinguishable. Although destitution and suffering were not general, at this time, in the South, they had prevailed, and to a fearful extent, in many sections; and everywhere a solemn and well-founded apprehension was felt upon the subject. Still it took two years more of disaster—of an invasion which probed every nook and corner of the South, and a condition of almost famine, to finally break the spirit of the Southern people, and make them, in the abjectness of their agony, actually welcome a peace which heralded subjugation as a relief from the horrors of war. It was the submission of the people which took the steel out of the army.

It is the fashion, with a certain class of Southern writers, to denounce Mr. Davis as the author of this condition of things, and to revile the Southern people because of their ultimate despair and surrender. Many and great blunders were committed in the conduct of the civil and military affairs of the Confederacy, and doubtless Mr. Davis was responsible for some of them.

In an affair of such magnitude, as was the Southern movement and the consequent war, errors would have characterized, in all probability, the administration of the most practiced and skillful military and political chiefs—how then could the administration of men, unschooled in the practical arts of managing revolutions and wars, be free from them? The wonder is, not that blunders were made, but that the bad effect of so many was partially repaired. The faults, which marred our fortunes, were the natural concomitants of a state of prolonged and constant warfare, and the latter weakening of our people was the inevitable result of a struggle against adverse circumstances and superior numbers and resources. The only way to have lessened the number of the former, and to have prevented the latter, would have been to fight, not a waiting, but a quick war.

On the 26th, the division was ordered back to Liberty and Alexandria. That country had been occupied and picketed, just before our return from Albany and Monticello, by a brigade of Wharton's division, commanded by Colonel (afterward Brigadier General) Harrison, of the Eighth Texas, a gallant and highly esteemed officer. Breckinridge's regiment (the Ninth Kentucky) was still kept at Woodbury. About this time Colonel A.R. Johnson returned from Texas, and was immediately assigned, by General Morgan, to the command of the second brigade—his rank entitled him to be second in command. This brigade had been ably commanded, since Gano's absence, by Cluke. Colonel Johnson retained none of the former brigade staff, except Lieutenant Sidney Cunningham, a brave and efficient officer, who was afterward Lieutenant Colonel of the Fifteenth Kentucky. The effective strength of the division, at this time, was twenty-eight hundred men. The horses were in better condition, and the men were better provided for in every respect, than at any period since the "December raid." New and excellent clothing had been issued them while on the Cumberland—a thing unprecedented in the history of the command—and their general equipment was much superior to what it had been at the close of the winter. All were well armed, and with the kind of guns which were always preferred in Morgan's cavalry. The Second Kentucky had managed to get rid of a great many guns, during the latter part of the winter and early part of the spring. The men of this regiment were styled by General Morgan his "Regulars," on account of their veteranship and proficiency in drill, etc., and, yet, notwithstanding its excellent reputation, this unsoldierly practice of losing and throwing away guns, had prevailed to such an extent in the regiment, that, at one time, nearly one half of its members were unarmed. The men did not seem to do it, to escape duty, or going into battle, for they all remained in camp and answered to the bugle—it seemed to be a fashion which they had suddenly adopted. This practice is one of the few, for which officers, inclined to be lenient in most particulars, may well be willing to have their men shot. Except that I have seen it prevail, at times, among troops of unquestionable bravery and fidelity, I would say that the most cowardly and treacherous spirit induces it. The Second Kentucky was a regiment which never had its superior—it possessed, not only courage and steadiness, but the highest "dash" and inflexible constancy, and yet, at one period, the practice which has been mentioned, prevailed in it to an extraordinary extent. Major Webber, commanding it at the time, made every man lacking a gun, after punishment in other ways, carry a heavy fence rail upon his shoulder, until he procured an Enfield or Springfield rifle. The facility with which the men found the required arms at the country houses, induced a suspicion that many of them had previously deposited the same guns where they subsequently got them. They were also threatened with being left behind on the next expedition to Kentucky, and with being sent to the infantry, if they did not speedily arm themselves, both of which intimations had an excellent effect.

The first brigade made headquarters at Alexandria. The regiments composing it, and Morgan's regiment (ordered to temporarily report to it) were encamped on the Lebanon pike, and the roads to Carthage and Statesville. The second brigade, with its headquarters at Auburn, was disposed upon the road to Murfreesboro', and between Auburn and Statesville. One regiment was posted at Statesville, which little place was nearly equi-distant from Auburn and Alexandria. The country around was picketed and scouted thoroughly in every direction, and the disposition of the regiments gave us such command of all the roads, that we could have concentrated without difficulty, and as the exigency might require, at Auburn, Alexandria, or Liberty. The period that we remained here was passed in assiduous and diligent instruction of the troops. Drills, dress-parades, inspections, etc., were constantly had—we had never before had so much time for those duties, when the division was so nearly concentrated. The strictest vigilance was maintained in our camps, to prevent the passage through them of Federal spies, who, at this period and at this quarter of our lines, were unusually numerous, cunning, and audacious. The strict guard and watch maintained to frustrate and detect these parties, operated favorably upon our own men, who were necessarily restricted, by the unusual precautions adopted, of much of the liberty they had previously enjoyed. The division was, perhaps, never in as high and salutary a state of discipline as at this time.

The enemy came near us but once during this, our last sojourn in this country. Colonel Morgan had been sent to Baird's mill, and returning, halted all night at Lebanon. The enemy advanced upon him at Lebanon, and as he fell back slowly toward Alexandria, followed him. I reinforced him with the Second Kentucky, and believing that it was a large force, formed my brigade in front of Alexandria, and requested Colonel Johnson to reinforce me with his brigade. He immediately set out to do so, leaving pickets to watch the Murfreesboro' pike. While we were awaiting his arrival, Colonel Morgan, Major Brent, (whom I should have stated was with him, in command of a small detachment of the Fifth Kentucky), and a portion of the Second Kentucky under Captain Franks, were skirmishing with the enemy, who continued slowly but steadily to advance, until reaching a locality called Watertown, he halted. Nothing had been learned definitely of his strength, but we believed it to be large, simply because every force previously sent against us, in this quarter, had greatly outnumbered us. When Colonel Johnson arrived (about 1 p.m.,) we at once moved forward to attack, but had proceeded only a short distance, when Colonel Morgan reported that the enemy were again in motion, pressing briskly upon him, and apparently determined to fight. This information induced me to return to the position I had just left—an admirable one, both to receive and return an attack—it was about three quarters of a mile to the rear of the head of the column, which had not yet gotten clear of it. This was a mistake greatly to be regretted, and prevented the fight. The enemy came within a mile of the position, maneuvered a little while, and fell back. By this time it was getting late. We followed him with two companies and two pieces of artillery, skirmished with and shelled him.

That night, while we still doubted their strength and intentions—they went off entirely. I learned, then, that they were not more than eighteen hundred strong, while we were at least twenty-five hundred. This affair would not be worth mentioning, except that it illustrated how a lack of enterprise, and a too great fancy for "good positions" will sometimes prevent excellent opportunities from being improved. If I had attacked, promptly, the whole force, in all likelihood, would have been captured. The enemy for some reason conceived a very exaggerated idea of our strength. Shortly after this, it was reported in Murfreesboro', if the papers we captured spoke truth, that Wheeler's entire corps and some infantry were stationed at Alexandria and Liberty, harvesting the magnificent wheat crop, with which the adjacent country teemed.

On the 10th of June, General Morgan arrived at Alexandria, and orders were at once issued to prepare the division to march on the next day. It soon became known to all the officers at least, that he was about to undertake an expedition which he had long contemplated, and which he had often solicited permission to make. This was the greatest of all his "raids," the one known as the "Ohio raid." Although it resulted disastrously to his own command, it had a great influence upon the pending campaign between Bragg and Rosecrans, and greatly assisted the former. It was beyond all comparison the grandest enterprise he ever planned, and the one which did most honor to his genius.

The military situation in Tennessee, at that time, may be briefly described:

General Bragg's army lay around Tullahoma, his cavalry covering his front and stretching far out upon both wings. General Buckner was in East Tennessee, with a force entirely inadequate to the defense of that important region. General Bragg, confronted by Rosecrans with a vastly superior force, dared not detach troops to strengthen Buckner. The latter could not still further weaken his small force by sending aid to General Bragg—if the latter should need it. General Burnside was preparing (in Kentucky), a force, variously estimated, at from fifteen to more than thirty thousand men, for the invasion of East Tennessee. With this force he could easily drive out Buckner. It was estimated that at various points in Southern Kentucky, Bowlinggreen, Glasgow, and along the Cumberland river—and at Carthage in Tennessee, and other points in that vicinity, there were from eight to twelve thousand Federal troops—the greater part of them under the command of a General Judah, whose headquarters were at Glasgow. Of these forces, some five thousand were excellent cavalry. General Judah's official papers (captured on the Ohio raid), gave the exact strength of his forces, but I have forgotten it.

There was perfect unanimity of opinion (among the Confederate officers), about the plan and method of the anticipated Federal movement. Rosecrans (all believed), would press hard upon General Bragg—Burnside, simultaneously, or as soon afterward as was practicable, would move against Buckner. Judah's force could be used to keep open direct communication between these two armies, and also as a reserve. When the advance was fairly inaugurated, Judah, who in the meantime might guard against the raids of our cavalry, could be concentrated and moved through Burkesville, Livingston and Sparta—turning then, if General Bragg staid to fight, upon the right flank of the army at Tallahoma—or, if General Bragg retreated, pressing down through the Sequatchie valley to Chattanooga. A junction of all these forces, it was thought, would be made, and the Confederate army would then confront a host too formidable to be beaten.

This was the belief which prevailed in our army regarding the intentions of the enemy. It may have been incorrect—the feature, which we of Morgan's cavalry especially dwelt upon, to-wit, the part, in the supposed programme, to be played by Judah, may have been altogether uncontemplated—perhaps he was not a man capable of having executed it. But whatever may have been the Federal plan of the campaign, it is certain that terrible dangers menaced the army of General Bragg, and all the salient points of his department.

General Bragg regarded the peril with just apprehension—he took in its full proportions. He decided and (as was conceded by all who understood the situation), with good and sufficient reasons, to retreat beyond the Tennessee river, and then somewhere near Chattanooga, turning upon his foes, fight the battle which had to be delivered for the protection of his department. But that retreat would be very hazardous. He was right in the path of the avalanche, and the least movement upon his part might precipitate it upon him. The difficulty and danger of crossing the Tennessee, with Rosecrans hard upon his rear, would be greatly augmented, if these other Federal forces were poured down upon his flank.

General Bragg, it may be repeated, knew how to use, and invariably used, his cavalry to good purpose, and in this emergency he resolved to employ some of it to divert from his own hazardous movement, and fasten upon some other quarter, the attention of a portion of the opposing forces. He hoped, not only to give them enough to do, to prevent them from annoying and endangering his retreat, but, also, to draw off a part of their forces from the great battle which he expected to fight. He selected Morgan as the officer who should accomplish this design.

In the conference between them, General Morgan expressed a perfect confidence in his ability to effect all that was desired of him, but dissented from General Bragg in one important particular. The latter wished him to confine himself to Kentucky—giving him carte blanche to go wherever he pleased in that State, and urging him to attempt the capture of Louisville. General Morgan declared, that, while he could by a dash into Kentucky and a march through that State, protect General Bragg's withdrawal from the position his army then held, he could not thus accomplish the other equally important feature of the plan, and draw off troops which would otherwise strengthen Rosecrans for the decisive battle.

A raid into Kentucky would keep Judah busy, and hold Burnside fast until it was decided, but, he contended it would be decided very soon, and he would be driven out or cut to pieces in a few days, leaving the Federal forces so disposed that they could readily commence their previously determined operations. A raid into Indiana and Ohio, on the contrary, he contended, would draw all the troops in Kentucky after him, and keep them employed for weeks. Although there might be sound military reasons why Judah and Burnside should not follow him, but should stick to what the Confederate officers deemed the original programme of Rosecrans, General Morgan urged, that the scare and the clamor in the States he proposed to invade, would be so great, that the military leaders and the administration would be compelled to furnish the troops that would be called for. He thought that, even if he lost his command, he could greatly benefit General Bragg by crossing the Ohio river and only in that way.

General Bragg refused him permission to make the raid as he desired to make it and ordered him to confine himself to Kentucky. I was not present at the interview between them, but General Morgan told me that General Bragg had ordered him to operate in Kentucky, and further stated that he intended, notwithstanding his orders, to cross the Ohio. I do not mean to justify his disobedience of orders, but simply to narrate the facts as I learned them, and to explain General Morgan's ideas regarding the movement, which were definite and fixed. This expedition into the Northwestern States had long been a favorite idea with him and was but the practical development of his theory of the proper way to make war, to-wit: by going deep into the country of the enemy. He had for several weeks foreseen the necessity of some such diversion in General Bragg's behalf, and believed that the period for the accomplishment of his great desire was at hand.

He had ordered me, three weeks previously, to send intelligent men to examine the fords of the upper Ohio—that at Buffington among them—and it is a fact, of which others, as well as myself, are cognizant, that he intended—long before he crossed the Ohio—to make no effort to recross it, except at some of these fords, unless he found it more expedient, when he reached that region, to join General Lee, if the latter should still be in Pennsylvania.

Never had I been so impressed with General Morgan's remarkable genius—his wonderful faculty of anticipating the exact effect his action would have upon all other men and of calculating their action—his singular power of arriving at a correct estimate of the nature and capacities of a country, which he knew only by maps and the most general description—and the perfect accuracy with which he could foretell the main incidents of a march and campaign—as when he would briefly sketch his plan of that raid. All who heard him felt that he was right in the main, and although some of us were filled with a grave apprehension, from the first, we felt an inconsistent confidence when listening to him. He did not disguise from himself the great dangers he encountered, but was sanguine of success. As it turned out, only the unprecedented rise in the Ohio caused his capture—he had avoided or had cut his way through all other dangers.

On the 11th of June, the division marched from Alexandria to the Cumberland and crossed the river not far from the little town of Rome. General Morgan desired to attack the Federal force stationed at Carthage, and strongly fortified. General Bragg had authorized him to do so.

The division encamped two or three miles from the northern bank of the river, and not far from the turnpike which runs from Carthage to Hartsville. Information had been received that the mail passed on this road twice or three times a week, guarded by a small escort, and that comfortably lined sutlers' wagons sometimes accompanied the cavalcade for the benefit of the protection the escort afforded. Colonel Ward was sent, with two or three companies of his regiment, to a point on the pike some eight miles from Carthage, and two or three from our encampment. He reached it just before sundown, and shortly afterward the mail train, accompanied by several sutlers' wagons, and under charge of an escort eighty or a hundred strong, came by, no one apparently suspecting the slightest danger, and all keeping careless watch. When the procession came opposite to where Colonel Ward had posted his men (some seventy yards from the road), the Colonel gave the order to fire in a loud voice. At the unexpected command, which so suddenly indicated danger, mail-carriers, sutlers, and guard halted in amazement, and when the answering volley broke upon them, they went in every direction in the wildest confusion. Not a shot was fired in return, but the escort manifested plainly that it felt a very inferior degree of interest in the integrity of postal affairs.

Few prisoners were taken, but the mail and the wagons were secured. In one of the latter, a corpulent sutler was found, wedged in a corner, and much alarmed. He was past speaking when drawn out, but faintly signed that a bottle he had in his pocket should be placed to his lips.

That evening a staff officer arrived from General Bragg with orders to General Morgan. He was instructed to make no attack upon Carthage, but to march as rapidly as possible to Monticello, and strive to intercept a Federal raiding party which had broken into East Tennessee, under Brigadier General Saunders, and was threatening Knoxville. Upon the next morning, consequently, we recrossed the Cumberland and marched in the direction ordered. After passing through Gainesboro', we got into a very rugged country and upon the very worst roads. At Livingston we were overtaken by a tremendous rain, which lasted for two or three days, and rendered the road almost impassable for artillery. This retarded our march very greatly, and we arrived at Albany three days later than we would otherwise have done, to learn that the enemy had already passed out of East Tennessee by way of Jamestown.

The second brigade was encamped in Turkey-neck Bend of the Cumberland river, some fifteen miles in direct line from Burkesville. The first brigade was encamped along the river, from a point opposite Burkesville to Irish Bottom. The division remained here for three or four days, awaiting the return of General Morgan, who had left us at the recrossing of the Cumberland to go to McMinnville and hurry forward some supplies and ammunition. These stores were hauled to our camp in six wagons, which had nearly not gotten to us at all. The heavy rains which had so retarded the march of the division to Albany, had made the roads which these wagons had traveled perfect quagmires. When they reached the Obie and Wolf rivers, which are six miles apart at the points where the road from Sparta to Monticello crosses them, they met with a very discouraging sight. These little rushing mountain streams were much swollen and too deep for any kind of fording. General Morgan instructed his Acting Inspector, Captain D.R. Williams, an officer of great energy, to have the wagons taken to pieces, and stowed, with their contents, in canoes, and so ferried across. In this manner, all were crossed in a single night. The mules were made to swim.

On the 2nd of July, the crossing of the Cumberland began, the first brigade crossing at Burkesville and Scott's ferry, two miles above, and the second crossing at Turkey-neck Bend. The river was out of its banks, and running like a mill-race. The first brigade had, with which to cross the men and their accouterments, and artillery, only two crazy little flats, that seemed ready to sink under the weight of a single man, and two or three canoes. Colonel Johnson was not even so well provided. The horses were made to swim.

Just twelve miles distant upon the other side, at Marrowbone, lay Judah's cavalry, which had moved to that point from Glasgow, in anticipation of some such movement upon Morgan's part as he was now making. Our entire strength was twenty-four hundred and sixty effective men—the first brigade numbering fourteen hundred and sixty, the second one thousand. This, however, was exclusive of artillery, of which we had four pieces—a section of three-inch Parrots attached to the first brigade, and a section of twelve-pound howitzers attached to the second. Videttes, posted at intervals along the river bank, would have given General Judah timely information of this bold crossing, and he would have been enabled to strike and crush or capture the whole force. But he depended on the swollen river to deter Morgan, forgetting that Morgan invariably did that which was least expected of him. As soon as the latter learned of the strange supineness and lack of vigilance of his foe, he commenced and hastened the work of crossing the river. About two or three p.m., the enemy began to threaten both brigades, but did not advance with determination. The Sixth Kentucky and Ninth Tennessee had all been gotten across at Burkesville by this time, and portions of the other regiments were also across, as well as two pieces of artillery. General Morgan formed this entire force, and led it to attack the enemy threatening Burkesville. He placed a portion of it in ambush at a point about a mile from the town, and, when the head of the enemy's column approached, fired such a volley into it as made it at once recoil. Then charging, he drove the enemy back in confusion and at full speed, never letting them halt until they reached the encampment at Marrowbone. He pursued the force which he had routed into the camp, but was repulsed in an attack upon the latter by the artillery and reserve forces there.

The effect of this bold dash, was to draw back the force threatening Johnson, also, and allow him to cross without molestation. Our loss was very slight—among other gallant fellows who were hurt, Captain Quirk was so severely wounded in the arm that he could go no further upon the expedition. Several prisoners were taken. The enemy, after this hint not to interfere, remained shut up in his encampment until we were no longer in any danger.

The division encamped that night about ten miles from the river, on the road to Columbia. A large party of Commissaries of Subsistence were with us, sent by General Bragg to collect supplies north of the Cumberland and bring them to Tullahoma, escorted by one of Morgan's regiments. A variety of causes conspired to prevent these gentlemen from returning at the time, and in the manner contemplated by General Bragg. In the first place, we learned, immediately after we had crossed the Cumberland, by men who came from the rear, that General Bragg had already commenced his retreat—this would considerably lengthen the distance which the Commissaries would have to drive their cattle. Secondly, General Morgan came to the conclusion that he had use for all of his troops, and that he would not detach the regiment which was to have guarded the cattle. This resolution not only prevented the cattle from being driven to General Bragg, but also decided the Commissaries not to return immediately. The country through which they would have had to pass, was infested by a set of bushwhackers, in comparison with whose relentless ferocity, that of Bluebeard and the Welch giants sinks into insignificance. Chief among them was "Tinker Dave Beattie," the great opponent of Champ Ferguson. This patriarchal old man lived in a cove, or valley surrounded by high hills, at the back of which was a narrow path leading to the mountain. Here, surrounded by his clan, he led a pastoral, simple life, which must have been very fascinating, for many who ventured into the cove never came away again. Sometimes Champ Ferguson, with his band, would enter the cove, harry old Dave's stock and goods, and drive him to his retreat in the mountain, to which no man ever followed him. Then, again, when he was strong enough, he would lead his henchmen against Champ, and slay all who did not escape. But it must not be understood that he confined his hostility to Captain Ferguson and the latter's men: on the contrary, he could have had, had he so chosen, as many scalps drying in his cabin as ever rattled in the lodge of a Camanche war-chief, and taken with promiscuous impartiality. There were not related of Beattie so many stories, illustrative of his personal strength and bull-dog courage, as of Champ Ferguson. I have heard of the latter having gone, on one occasion, into a room where two of his bitter enemies lay before the fire, both strong men and armed, and, throwing himself upon them, he killed both (after a hard struggle) with his knife. But Beattie possessed a cunning and subtlety which the other, in great measure, lacked. Perhaps he was more nearly civilized. Both of these men were known to have spared life on some rare occasions, and perhaps none were so much astonished, thereat, as themselves. On one occasion, Ferguson was called upon to express an opinion regarding the character of a man who had been arrested near a spot where bushwhackers had just fired upon the party he (Ferguson) was with, and, from several suspicious indications, this man was thought to be one of them. By way of giving him a chance, it was decided that Ferguson, who knew every man in that country, should declare his doom, influenced by his previous knowledge of him. Ferguson, somewhat to the astonishment of the tribunal, begged that he should be released, saying, that he knew he was a Union man, but did not believe that he was a bushwhacker. The man was released. Subsequently, Ferguson said, after a long fit of silence, "I have a great notion to go back and hunt that man. I am afraid I have done wrong, for he is the best shot in this part of the State, and, if he does turn bushwhacker, he will kill a man at every shot." Such extreme nicety of conscience was not attributed to Beattie, nor was he said to be as faithful to his friends as was Ferguson.

Such were the kind of men whom our friends, of the Subsistence Department, would have had to encounter, if they had gone back. There were, at the time, no Confederate troops in that country, and Champ Ferguson was resting in inglorious ease at Sparta. Dave Beattie had broken out of his cove, and was ready to hold "bloody assizes" as soon as he secured his victims. Our friends were not accustomed to "raiding" and to cavalry habits, but, after thorough reflection, they resolved, with a heroism that would have done honor to the heavy artillery service, not to return, but to face all the hardships and dangers of the expedition. They were gallant men, and endured the tremendous fatigue, and shared the hardships as cheerfully as if they had come legitimately by them.

The chief of this party, Major Highley (from Mobile), was as full of dash and as fond of adventure, as a man could be. He sought the front on all occasions, and soon became a thorough cavalryman in all respects. General Morgan placed him upon his staff and he proved a very efficient officer, and seemed much gratified that his commissaries had been cut off.

There was one case of almost abduction, however, which excited universal regret and commiseration:

An old gentleman, from Sparta, had come with the division to Burkesville to get a barrel of salt—as there was none to be had at Sparta. His benevolent virtues had endeared him to all who knew him, and, so, when it became apparent that he must go back, leaving behind him his purchase, and at the risk of fearful dangers, or follow us through the whole raid, he received much and unaffected condolence. He perfectly realized his situation. He knew that, if he fell into "Tinker Dave's" hands, he would be pickled without salt, and he had not the slightest idea of trying it on. And yet he felt a natural sorrow at going so far away from home. Some two weeks later, when we were in Ohio, and being peppered by the militia, he said to an officer of the first brigade with tears in his eyes, and a touching pathos in his voice: "Captain, I would give my farm in White county, Tennessee, and all the salt in Kentucky (if I had it), to stand once more—safe and sound—on the banks of the Calf-killer creek."

On the morning of the 3rd, the division resumed its march, pushing on to Columbia. Colonel Morgan's regiment, although included in the field return of the first brigade, was detached and used as an advance-guard for the column. In the afternoon, as we neared Columbia, this regiment came upon the enemy moving out from the town. In the skirmish which ensued, Colonel Morgan lost a few wounded—among the number Captain J.T. Cassell, who was shot in the thigh as he was charging with his accustomed gallantry. He was placed in an ambulance and went, in that way, through the raid, and escaped capture. Captain Cassell had been ordered to report to Colonel Morgan with his Company, a few weeks previously, and was acting as second in command of the advance-guard. Captain Franks of the Second Kentucky was ordered to report to Colonel Morgan, to fill the position left vacant by the disabling of Captain Cassell. After this skirmish had lasted a short time, the Second Kentucky was ordered up to support Colonel Morgan. Major Webber dismounted his men and attacked with great vigor. The enemy did not stand a moment—were driven back into the town, fought a short time from the houses, and were soon dislodged and driven pell-mell out of the town. Major Webber lost two men killed. The enemy's loss was also slight. It was a detachment of Woolford's regiment, and retreated toward Jimtown. Some disgraceful scenes occurred in Columbia as the troops were passing through. One or two stores were broken into and plundered. General Morgan immediately went to the spot, arrested the marauders, punished them, and compelled the restitution of the goods.

On that evening the division encamped six or eight miles from Columbia. A regiment of Federal infantry was stationed at Green river bridge, where the road from Columbia to Campbellsville and Lebanon crosses the Green river. General Morgan sent Captain Franks to watch them, who reported that, during the entire night, he heard the ringing of axes and the crash of falling timber. The next morning we learned what it meant. Early on the 4th the column was put in motion, and the second brigade (marching in front), soon came upon the enemy. Colonel Moore, the officer commanding the Federal force (a Michigan regiment), had selected the strongest natural position, I ever saw, and had fortified it with a skill equal to his judgment in the selection. The Green river makes here a tremendous and sweeping bend, not unlike in its shape to the bowl of an immense spoon. The bridge is located at the tip of the bowl, and about a mile and a half to the southward, where the river returns so nearly to itself that the peninsula (at this point) is not more than one hundred yards wide—at what, in short, may be termed the insertion of the handle—Colonel Moore had constructed an earthwork, crossing the narrow neck of land, and protected in front by an abattis. The road upon which we were advancing, runs through this position. The peninsula widens again, abruptly, to the southward of this extremely narrow neck, and just in front of the skirt of woods, in which the work and abattis was situated, is an open glade, about two hundred yards in extent in every direction. Just in front of, or south of this plateau of cleared ground, runs a ravine deep and rugged, rendering access to it difficult, except by the road. The road runs not directly through, but to the left of this cleared place. All around it are thick woods, and upon the east and west the river banks are as steep and impassable as precipices. At the southern extremity of the open ground, and facing and commanding the road, a rifle-pit had been dug, about one hundred and twenty feet long—capable of containing fifty or sixty men, and about that number were posted in it. When Colonel Johnson's brigade neared the enemy, he sent Cluke with his own regiment and the Tenth Kentucky, then greatly reduced in numbers, to cross the river at a ford upon the left of the road, and take position on the northern side of the river, and commanding the bridge.

This was intended to prevent the retreat of the enemy and keep off reinforcements that might approach from the northward. A flag of truce was then sent to Colonel Moore, demanding the surrender of his command. He answered, "It is a bad day for surrenders, and I would rather not." Captain Byrnes had planted one of the Parrots, about six hundred yards from the rifle-pit, and skirmishers had been thrown out in front of it. As soon as the bearer of the flag returned, Byrnes opened with the gun. He fired a round shot into the parapet thrown up in front of the trench, knocking the fence rails, with which it was riveted, into splinters, and probing the work. One man in the trench was killed, by this shot, and the rest ran (just as our skirmishers dashed forward) and retreated across the open ground to the work in the woods beyond. Now the serious business commenced. Artillery could not be used to dislodge them from the position which was meant to be defended in earnest. This open ground, between the points where were constructed the rifle-pit (which was only a blind) and the strong work where Moore intended to fight, is the flat summit (for crest, properly speaking, it has none) of a hill, or rather swell of land, which slopes gently away on both the northern and southern sides. Guns planted anywhere, except upon this plateau, and near its center, could not have borne upon the enemy's position at all—and, if they had been planted there, every cannoneer would have been killed before a shot could have been fired. The only way to take the work was by a straight forward attack upon it, and Colonel Johnson moved against it his brigade, or rather the two regiments of it, left on the southern side of the river. The men, gallantly led, dashed across the open ground and plunged into the woods beyond.

The Federal force, some four hundred strong, was disposed behind the work and abattis, holding a line not much more than a hundred yards long. The first rush carried the men close to the work, but they were stopped by the fallen timber, and dropped fast under the close fire of the enemy. Colonel Chenault was killed in the midst of the abattis—his brains blown out as he was firing his pistol into the earthwork and calling on his men to follow. The second brigade had started with an inadequate supply of ammunition, and the fire of the attacking party soon slackened on that account. General Morgan ordered me to send a regiment to Colonel Johnson's assistance, and I sent the Fifth Kentucky. Colonel Smith led his men at a double-quick to the abattis, where they were stopped as the others had been, and suffered severely. The rush through a hundred yards of undergrowth, succeeded by a jam and crowding of a regiment into the narrow neck, and confronted by the tangled mass of prostrate timber and the guns of the hidden foe—was more than the men could stand. They would give way, rally in the thick woods, try it again, but unsuccessfully. The fire did not seem, to those of us who were not immediately engaged, to be heavy. There were no sustained volleys. It was a common remark that the shots could almost be counted—but almost every shot must have taken effect.

Our loss in less than half an hour's fighting, and with not over six hundred men engaged, for only portions of the regiments, sent into the fight, were engaged, was thirty-six killed, and forty-five or six wounded. Twenty, or more of the wounded were able to ride, and in a few days returned to duty. The loss of the enemy (according to the most authoritative account) was nine killed, and twenty-six wounded.

Many fine officers were included in our list of casualties. Colonel Chenault, whose death has been described—an officer who had no superior in bravery and devotion to the cause he fought for—was a noble gentleman. Major Brent, of the Fifth Kentucky, was killed. He was an officer who was rapidly taking—in reputation and popularity—the place among the field officers of the division which Hutchinson had held. He was recklessly brave, and possessed a natural military aptitude, and a resolution in exacting duty from his subordinate officers and men, which made him invaluable to his regiment. Captain Treble, who a short time previously had been transferred from the Second to the Eleventh Kentucky (Chenault's regiment) was also killed. He displayed, in this his last battle, the same high courage which ever animated him. Lieutenant Cowan, of the Third Kentucky, and Lieutenants Holloway and Ferguson, of the Fifth Kentucky—all very fine officers were also among the killed. Among the wounded officers, of the Fifth Kentucky, was the gallant and efficient Adjutant, Lieutenant Joseph Bowmar.

When General Morgan learned that the men were falling fast, and that no impression was being made upon the enemy, he ordered their withdrawal. He had not been fully aware, when the attack commenced, of the exceeding strength of the position, although he knew it to be formidable, and he thought it probable that the garrison would surrender to a bold attack. It was his practice to attack and seek to capture all, but the strongest, of the forces which opposed his advance upon his raids, and this was the only instance in which he ever failed of success in this policy. He believed that the position could have been eventually carried, but (as the defenders were resolute) at a cost of time and life which he could not afford. Colonel Moore ought to have been able to defend his position, against direct attacks, had an army been hurled against him. But this does not detract from the credit of his defense. His selection of ground showed admirable judgment; and, in a brief time, he fortified it with singular skill. He deliberately quitted a strong stockade, near the bridge (in which other officers would, probably have staid) and which our artillery would have battered about his ears directly, to assume the far better position; and his resolute defense, showed he appreciated and meant to hold it to the last. We expected to hear of his promotion—men had been promoted for beatings received from Morgan.

Crossing the river at the same ford at which Cluke had previously crossed, the division marched toward Campbellsville. Our wounded and dead were left under the charge of Surgeons and Chaplains, who received every assistance, that he could furnish, from Colonel Moore, who proved himself as humane as he was skillful and gallant. We passed through Campbellsville without halting. On that evening a horrible affair occurred. A certain Captain Murphy took a watch from a citizen who was being held, for a short time, under guard, to prevent his giving information of our approach and strength to the garrison at Lebanon. Captain Magenis, Assistant Adjutant General of the division, discovered that this theft had been perpetrated, and reported it to General Morgan, who ordered Murphy to be arrested. Murphy learned that Magenis had caused his arrest, and persuaded the guard (who had not disarmed him) to permit him to approach Magenis. When near him, Murphy drew and cocked a pistol, and denounced the other furiously, at the same time striking him. Captain Magenis attempted to draw his saber, and Murphy fired, severing the carotid artery and producing almost instant death. Murphy made his escape on the night that General Morgan had ordered a court-martial to try him—the night before we crossed the Ohio. The wretch ought to have been butchered in his tracks, immediately after the murder had been committed. There was no officer in the entire Confederate army, perhaps, so young as he was, who had evinced more intelligence, aptitude and zeal, than had Captain Magenis. Certainly, there was not among them all a more true-hearted, gallant, honorable gentleman. General Morgan deeply regretted him. His successor, Captain Hart Gibson, was in every way qualified to discharge, with ability and success, the duties of the position, doubly difficult in such a command and under such circumstances.

On the night of the 4th, the division encamped five miles from Lebanon, upon the ground whence we drove the enemy's pickets. Lebanon was garrisoned by Colonel Hanson's regiment, the Twentieth Kentucky, and not far off, on the road to Harrodsburg, two Michigan regiments were stationed. On the morning of the 5th, the division approached the town, and a demand for its surrender was made, which was declined. The first brigade was formed on the right of the road, with two regiments in reserve. The second was assigned the left of the road. The artillery was planted in the center, and at once opened upon the slight works which were thrown up, south of the town. As the regiments in the front line advanced, the enemy retreated into the town. Both brigades lost slightly in effecting this, and succeeded, immediately afterward, in dislodging the enemy from the houses in the edge of the town, both on the left and on the right. The enemy, then, mainly concentrated in the large depot building upon the railroad; a few sought shelter in other houses. Grigsby's and Ward's regiments, of the first brigade, held the right of the town and the houses looking upon the depot in that quarter. From these houses they kept up a constant fire upon the windows of the depot. Cluke's and Chenault's regiments, the latter under command of Lieutenant Colonel Tucker, were as effectively located and employed upon the left. Our artillery, although under able officers, proved of little use to us in this affair. On account of the situation of the depot in low ground, the shots took effect in the upper part of the building (when they struck at all), doing the occupants little damage. Lieutenant Lawrence, however, at length posted one of his guns—the Parrots—on a hill immediately overlooking the building, and, greatly depressing it, prepared to fire into it at an angle which threatened mischief. But the sharpshooters prevented his men from working the guns effectively. This state of affairs lasted for two or three hours. The Michigan regiments, before mentioned, drew near and threatened interference, and General Morgan, who had sought to reduce the garrison without storming their stronghold, in order to save his own men, at length ordered it to be carried by assault. Smith's regiment, at first held in reserve in the first brigade, had, previously to this determination upon the part of the General, been engaged, but the Second Kentucky was still in reserve. Major Webber was now ordered to bring that regiment forward, enter the town and storm the buildings occupied by the enemy. The Second Kentucky had tried that sort of work before, and advanced with serious mien, but boldly and confidently. Major Webber skillfully aligned it and moved it forward. The heavy volley it poured into the windows of the depot, drove the defenders away from them before the regiment reached the building, and Colonel Hanson surrendered. The other houses occupied by the enemy were surrendered shortly afterward.

At the last moment of the fight, a sad loss befell us. Lieutenant Thomas Morgan, younger brother of the General, was killed just before the enemy surrendered. He was first Lieutenant of Company I, of the Second Kentucky, but was serving at the time of his death upon my staff. He habitually sought and exposed himself to danger, seeming to delight in the excitement it afforded him. He had repeatedly been remonstrated with on that day, regarding his reckless exposure of his person, and General Morgan had once ordered him to leave the front. He was stricken by the fate which his friends feared for him. When the Second Kentucky advanced, he rushed in front of it, and, while firing his pistol at the windows of the depot, was shot through the heart. He exclaimed to his brother Calvin, that he was killed, and fell (a corpse) into the latter's arms. He was but nineteen when killed, but was a veteran in service and experience. The first of six brothers to join the Confederate army, he had displayed his devotion to the cause he had espoused in the field and the prison. I have never known a boy of so much genius, and of so bright and winning a temper. His handsome, joyous face and gallant, courteous bearing made him very popular. He was the pet and idol of the Second Kentucky. General Morgan (whose love for the members of his family was of the most devoted character) was compelled to forego the indulgence of his own grief to restrain the Second Kentucky, furious at the death of their favorite. When his death became generally known, there was not a dry eye in the command.

Although our loss in killed and wounded was not heavy in numbers, it included some valuable officers and some of our best men. We lost eight or nine killed, and twenty-five or thirty wounded. In the early part of the fight, Captain Franks led a party of the advance guard to the southern end of the depot, and set it on fire. He was severely wounded in doing this, making the third officer, occupying the position of second in command of the advance guard, wounded in four days. The loss in the guard fell principally upon members of the "Old Squadron." Of these were killed Lieutenant Gardner and private Worsham; and Sergeant William Jones and privates Logwood and Hawkins were badly wounded, all very brave men and excellent soldiers. A gallant deed was performed, on that day, by private Walter Ferguson, one of the bravest men I ever knew; poor fellow, he was hung by Burbridge afterward. His friend and messmate Logwood lay helpless not far from the depot, and Ferguson approached him under the galling fire from the windows, lifted and bore him off. Several men were lost out of the Second Kentucky; among them Sergeant Franklin, formerly Captain of a Mississippi company in the Army of Northern Virginia.

A large quantity of ammunition, many fine rifles, an abundant supply of medicines, and a field full of ambulances and wagons were the fruits of this victory. The prisoners were double-quicked to Springfield, eight miles distant, for the dilatory Michiganders had at length began to move, and there was no reason for fighting, although we could have whipped them. At Springfield the prisoners were paroled. Company H, of the Second Kentucky, was detached here, and a company of the Sixth Kentucky went off without leave or orders. Company H was sent to Harrodsburg to occupy the attention of Burnside's cavalry. The division marched all night, reaching Bardstown at 4 o'clock on the morning of the 6th. During the night Lieut.-Colonel Alston (acting chief of staff to General Morgan) lay down to sleep in the porch of a house, and awakened to find himself in the hands of the enemy.

At Bardstown, Captain Sheldon, of Company C, Second Kentucky, detached at Muldraugh's hill to reconnoiter toward Louisville, and rejoin us at Bardstown, was patiently watching a party of twenty Federal soldiers, whom he had penned up in a stable. The tramp of the column marching through the town alarmed them, and they surrendered. Leaving Bardstown at ten a.m. on the 6th, the division marched steadily all day. Just at dark the train from Nashville was captured at a point some thirty miles from Louisville. A little of Ellsworth's art applied here discovered for us the fact that Morgan was expected at Louisville, confidently and anxiously, but that an impression prevailed that he would meet with a warm reception. He had no idea of going to receive it.

We marched during the entire night, and on the next morning, after crossing the bridge over Salt river, halted for two or three hours. Captains Taylor and Merriwether, of the Tenth Kentucky, were sent forward to capture boats to enable us to cross the Ohio, and went about their errand in good earnest. On the afternoon of that day, Captain Davis, A.A. General of the first brigade, was selected by General Morgan to undertake a service very important to the success of the expedition. He was directed to proceed, with Company D of the Second Kentucky, and Company A, of Cluke's regiment, to cross the river at Twelve Mile Island, seize boats and cross the river, keep the militia of lower Indiana employed in watching their own "firesides," chicken coops, and stables, so that the column might be comparatively free from molestation, in at least one direction, and to rejoin the division at Salem, Indiana. These two companies, the two detached at Springfield—or rather one detached there; the other marched off without leave—and Captain Salter's company detached near Columbia, to attract Burnside's attention to the country around Crab Orchard, Stanford, etc., (whither he at once hastened and did splendid service, keeping the enemy as busily employed as an ordinary-sized brigade might have done), these companies made five, in all, which were permanently detached from the division.

On the afternoon of the 7th, the column halted at Garnettsville, in Hardin county, and went into camp. It has been frequently surmised, in the North, that Morgan crossed the Ohio river to escape from Hobson. Of all the many wildly and utterly absurd ideas which have prevailed regarding the late war, this is, perhaps, the most preposterous. It is difficult to understand how, even the people whose ideas of military operations are derived from a vague rendition of the newspaper phrases of "bagging" armies, "dispositions made to capture," "deriving material advantages," when the derivers were running like scared deer, it is hard to comprehend how even such people, if they ever look upon maps, or reflect for a moment upon what they read, can receive, as correct, such assertions as the one under consideration. Hobson was from twenty-four to thirty-six hours behind us. He was pursuing us, it should be stated, with the cavalry of Judah's corps—he was, at any rate, a good fifty miles in our rear, and could learn our track only by following it closely. General Morgan, if anxious to escape Hobson, and actuated by no other motive, would have turned at Bardstown, and gone out of Kentucky through the western part of the State, where he would have encountered no hostile force that he could not have easily repulsed. It was not too late to pursue the same general route when we were at Garnettsville. Roads, traversable by artillery and excellent for cavalry, ran thence in every direction. Hobson would have had as little chance to intercept us, as a single hunter has to corner a wild horse in an open prairie. To rush across the Ohio river, as a means of escape, would have been the choice of an idiot, and yet such conduct has been ascribed to the shrewdest, most wide-awake, most far-seeing Captain (in his own chosen method of warfare), the greatest master of "cavalry strategy," that ever lived. That military men in the North should have entertained this opinion, proves, only, that in armies so vast, as that which the United States put into the field, there must necessarily be many men of very small capacity. General Morgan certainly believed that he could, with energy and care, preserve his command from capture after crossing the Ohio, but he no more believed that it would be safer, after having gained the Northern side of the river, than he believed that it was safer in Kentucky than south of the Cumberland.

The division marched from Garnettsville, shortly after midnight, and by 9 or 10 a.m. we were in Brandenburg, upon the banks of the river. Here we found Captains Samuel Taylor and Clay Merriwether, awaiting our arrival. They had succeeded in capturing two fine steamers; one had been taken at the wharf, and, manning her strongly, they cruised about the river until they found and caught the other. We were rejoined here by another officer, whose course had been somewhat eccentric, and his adventure very romantic. This was Captain Thomas Hines, of the Ninth Kentucky, then enjoying a high reputation in our command for skill, shrewdness, and exceeding gallantry, but destined to become much more widely celebrated. While the division was lying along the Cumberland in May, Captain Hines had been sent to Clinton county, with the men of the Ninth Kentucky, whose horses were especially unserviceable, to place them where, with good feeding, rest and attention, the stock might be recruited—to establish, in other words, what was technically known as a "convalescent camp," and in regimental "slang," a "dead horse camp." Captain Hines established his camp and put it into successful operation, but then sought permission to undertake more active and exciting work. He was not exactly the style of man to stay quiet at a "convalescent camp;" it would have been as difficult to keep him there, as to confine Napoleon to Elba, or force the "Wandering Jew" to remain on a cobbler's bench. He obtained from General Morgan an order to take such of his men as were best mounted, and scout "north of the Cumberland." He, therefore, selected thirty or forty of his "convalescents," whose horses were able to hobble, and crossed the river with them. Immediately exchanging his crippled horses for good, sound ones, he commenced a very pleasant and adventurous career, which lasted for some weeks. He attacked and harassed the marching columns of the enemy, and kept the smaller garrisons constantly in fear, and moved about with such celerity that there was no getting at him, occasionally interluding his other occupations by catching and burning a railroad train. He once came very near being entirely destroyed. The enemy succeeded, on one occasion, in eluding his vigilance and surprising him. While he and his men were peacefully bathing in a creek, molesting no one, they were suddenly attacked. Several were captured and the rest were dispersed, but Hines collected them, again, in a day or two.

After a while, finding Kentucky grow warm for him, and not wishing to return to the command to be remanded to the "convalescent camp," he determined to cross over into Indiana and try and stir up the "copperheads." He thought that (according to the tenor of his instructions), he had the right to do so. The order did not specify when he should return from his scout, and Indiana was certainly "north of the Cumberland." He accordingly crossed into Indiana—made his presence known to the people of the State in various ways—and penetrated as far into the interior of the State, as Seymour, at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi and Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railroads. He here effected a junction with a greatly more numerous body of militia, which induced him to retrace his steps rapidly to the Ohio (which he recrossed), and arrived at Brandenburg on the very day that we got there. We found him leaning against the side of the wharf-boat, with sleepy, melancholy look—apparently the most listless, inoffensive youth that was ever imposed upon. I do not know what explanation he made General Morgan (of the lively manner in which he had acted under his order), but it seemed to be perfectly satisfactory, and he was ordered to report to Colonel Morgan to assume the position left vacant by the wounding of Captain Franks.

Just before the crossing of the river was commenced, an unexpected fusillade was delivered, from the Indiana shore, upon the men who showed themselves in the little town and upon the boats, which was soon followed by the sharp report of a rifled-cannon. The river at this point is some eight hundred or a thousand yards wide—and the musketry produced no effect. The shell, however, from the piece of artillery pitched into a group on the river bank, scattering it, and wounding Captain Wilson, Quartermaster of the First Brigade. The mist, hanging thick over the river, had prevented us from seeing the parties who directed this firing, take position. Soon the mist lifted or was dispersed by the bright sun, and disclosed a squad of combatants posted behind one or two small houses, a clump of hay stacks, and along the brink of the river on the other side. Apparently, from the mixture of uniforms and plain clothes, which could be discovered by the glass, this force was composed of militia and some regular troops. Several shots were fired from the gun while we were getting our pieces in readiness to reply—but as soon as Lawrence opened upon them with his Parrots, a manifest disposition to retire was seen among our friends who had shown themselves so anxious to give us a warm and early welcome. They attempted to carry the piece of artillery off with them, but were induced by Lawrence to relinquish it. It was mounted upon the wheels of a wagon from which the body had been removed, and, as they moved it by hand, its transportation was difficult and tedious and very disagreeable under fire.

Leaving the piece, they fell back to a wooded ridge five or six hundred yards from the river bank and parallel with it. The Second Kentucky and Ninth Tennessee were immediately put across the river, leaving their horses on the Kentucky shore, and were formed under the bluff bank. As they ascended the bank they were greeted by a volley from the enemy which did no damage, and Colonel Ward and Major Webber at once pressed them on toward the ridge. Scarcely had the boats returned, and while yet the two regiments on the other side were moving across the open fields between the river and the ridge, when a small boat which had for some minutes been in sight, steaming rapidly down the river, began to take a part in the affair. We had watched her with great interest, and were inclined to think, from her bold unhesitating advance, that she was a river gunboat, and when she came within a mile of the town all doubts upon the subject were dispelled. Suddenly checking her way, she tossed her snub nose defiantly, like an angry beauty of the coal-pits, sidled a little toward the town, and commenced to scold. A bluish-white, funnel-shaped cloud spouted out from her left-hand bow and a shot flew at the town, and then changing front forward, she snapped a shell at the men on the other side. The ridge was soon gained by the regiments, however, the enemy not remaining to contest it, and they were sheltered by it from the gunboat's fire. I wish I were sufficiently master of nautical phraseology to do justice to this little vixen's style of fighting, but she was so unlike a horse, or a piece of light artillery, even, that I can not venture to attempt it. She was boarded up tightly with tiers of heavy oak planking, in which embrasures were cut for the guns, of which she carried three bronze twelve-pounder howitzers, apparently. Captain Byrnes transferred the two Parrots to an eminence just upon the river and above the town, and answered her fire. His solid shot skipped about her, in close proximity, and his shells burst close to her, but none seemed to touch her—although it was occasionally hard to tell whether she was hit or not. This duel was watched with the most breathless interest by the whole division; the men crowded in intense excitement upon the bluffs, near the town, to witness it, and General Morgan exhibited an emotion he rarely permitted to be seen.

Two of his best regiments were separated from him by the broad river, and were dismounted, a condition which always appeals to a cavalryman's strongest sympathies; they might at any moment, he feared, be attacked by overwhelming forces, for he did not know what was upon the other side, or how large a swarm Hines had stirred up in the hornet's nest. He himself might be attacked, if delayed too long, by the enemy that he well knew must be following his track. Independently of all considerations of immediate danger, he was impatient at delay and anxious to try his fortune in the new field he had selected. There were many with him who could appreciate his feelings. Behind us two broad States separated us from our friends—a multitude of foes, although we thought little of them, were gathering in our rear.

On the other side of the great river were our comrades needing our aid, perhaps never to be received. When we, too, were across, we would stand face to face with the hostile and angry North—an immense and infuriated population, and a soldiery out-numbering us twenty to one, would confront us. Telegraph lines, tracing the country in every direction, would tell constantly of our movements; railways would bring assailants against us from every quarter, and we would have to run this gauntlet, night and day, without rest or one moment of safety, for six hundred miles. As we looked on the river, rolling before us, we felt that it divided us from a momentous future, and we were eager to learn our fate. After an hour perhaps had elapsed, but which seemed a dozen, the gunboat backed out and steamed up the river. Her shells had nearly all burst short, doing no damage. The boats were put to work again without a moment's delay, to ferry the command over. First, the horses of the men on the other side were carried to them, affording them exquisite gratification. Although no time was lost, and the boats were of good capacity, it was nearly dark before the first brigade was all across. The gunboat returned about five p.m., accompanied by a consort, but a few shots from the Parrots, which had been kept in position, drove them away without any intermission having occurred in the ferriage. The second brigade and the artillery were gotten across by midnight. One of the boats, which was in Government employ, was burned; the other was released.

The first brigade encamped that night about six miles from the river. "A great fear" had fallen upon the inhabitants of that part of the State of Indiana. They had left their houses, with open doors and unlocked larders, and had fled to the thickets and "caves of the hills." At the houses at which I stopped, every thing was just in the condition in which the fugitive owners had left it, an hour or two before. A bright fire was blazing upon the kitchen hearth, bread half made up was in the tray, and many indications convinced us that we had interrupted preparations for supper. The chickens were strolling before the door with a confidence that was touching, but misplaced. General Morgan rode by soon afterward, and was induced to "stop all night." We completed the preparations, so suddenly abandoned, and made the best show for Indiana hospitality that was possible under the disturbing circumstances.

On the next day, the 9th, the division marched at an early hour, the second brigade in advance. At the little town of Corydon, Colonel Morgan's advance guard found a body of militia posted behind rail barricades. He charged them, but they resolutely defended their rail piles, killing and wounding several men, among the latter Lieutenant Thorpe, of Company A, Second Kentucky, Colonel Morgan's acting Adjutant, and a very fine young officer. A demonstration was made upon the flank of the enemy, by one regiment of the second brigade, and Colonel Morgan again advanced upon their front, when, not understanding such a fashion of fighting upon two or three sides at once, the militia broke and ran, with great rapidity, into the town, their progress accelerated (as they got fairly into the streets) by a shot dropped among them from one of the pieces.

Passing through Corydon, we took the Salem road, and encamped some sixteen or eighteen miles from the latter place. On the morning of the 10th, we set out for Salem. Major Webber was ordered to take the advance, and let nothing stop him. He accordingly put his regiment at the head of the column, and struck out briskly. Lieutenant Welsh, of Company K, had the extreme advance with twelve men. As he neared Salem, he saw the enemy forming to receive him, and, without hesitation, dashed in among them. The party he attacked was about one hundred and fifty strong, but badly armed and perfectly raw, and he quickly routed them. He pursued as they fled, and soon, supported by Captain W.J. Jones' company, drove them pell-mell into the town. Here some two or three hundred were collected, but, as the Second Kentucky came pouring upon them, they fled in haste, scattering their guns in the streets. A small swivel, used by the younger population of Salem to celebrate Christmas and the Fourth of July, had been planted to receive us: about eighteen inches long, it was loaded to the muzzle, and mounted in the public square by being propped against a stick of fire wood. It was not fired, however, for the man deputed to perform that important duty, somewhat astounded by the sudden dash into the town, dropped the coal of fire with which he should have touched it off, and before he could get another the rebels captured the piece. The shuddering imagination refuses to contemplate the consequences had that swivel been touched off. Major Webber might have had some trouble with this force, which was being rapidly augmented, but for the promptness and vigor of his attack. He made favorable mention of Captain Cooper, of Company K, and Lieutenant West, of Company I, for gallant and judicious conduct.

A short halt was made in Salem to feed men and horses, and during that time several railroad bridges were burned. The Provost guard had great difficulty in restraining the men from pillaging, and was unsuccessful in some instances, Major Steele, of the Third Kentucky, had been appointed Provost Marshal of the division, and was assisted by picked officers and men from each of the brigades. Major Steele was a most resolute, vigilant, energetic officer, and yet he found it impossible to stop a practice which neither company nor regimental officers were able to aid him in suppressing. This disposition for wholesale plunder exceeded any thing that any of us had ever seen before. The men seemed actuated by a desire to "pay off" in the "enemy's country" all scores that the Federal army had chalked up in the South. The great cause for apprehension, which our situation might have inspired, seemed only to make them reckless. Calico was the staple article of appropriation—each man (who could get one) tied a bolt of it to his saddle, only to throw it away and get a fresh one at the first opportunity. They did not pillage with any sort of method or reason—it seemed to be a mania, senseless and purposeless. One man carried a bird-cage, with three canaries in it, for two days. Another rode with a chafing-dish, which looked like a small metallic coffin, on the pummel of his saddle, until an officer forced him to throw it away. Although the weather was intensely warm, another, still, slung seven pairs of skates around his neck, and chuckled over his acquisition. I saw very few articles of real value taken—they pillaged like boys robbing an orchard. I would not have believed that such a passion could have been developed, so ludicrously, among any body of civilized men. At Piketon, Ohio, some days later, one man broke through the guard posted at a store, rushed in (trembling with excitement and avarice), and filled his pockets with horn buttons. They would (with few exceptions) throw away their plunder after awhile, like children tired of their toys.

Leaving Salem at one or two o'clock, we marched rapidly and steadily. At nightfall we reached Vienna, on the Indianapolis and Jeffersonville railroad. General Morgan placed Ellsworth in the telegraph office here, the operator having been captured before he could give the alarm. Ellsworth soon learned all the news to be had from Louisville and Indianapolis, some of it valuable to us. General Morgan ascertained also that orders had been issued to the militia to fell timber and blockade all of the roads we would be likely to travel—our rapid marching had, hitherto, saved us this annoyance. That night we went into camp near Lexington, a little place six or seven miles from Vienna. General Morgan slept in the town with a small escort, and during the night a party of Federal cavalry entered the town and advanced as far as the house in which he slept, but retired as suddenly as they came. We moved at an early hour on the road to Paris—Colonel Smith was detached to feint against Madison, in order to hold there troops who might prove troublesome if they came out. The division moved quietly through Paris, and in the afternoon arrived in sight of Vernon. Here Colonel Smith rejoined us. A strong force was posted in Vernon, which General Morgan did not care to attack. Fortunately, there were men in the command who knew the country, and the General was enabled to carry the division around the place to the Dupont road. Skirmishers were thrown out on the road, leading into the town which we had left, and also upon the other road, while this movement was being executed. General Morgan sent a demand for the surrender of the place, which was declined, but the officer commanding asked two hours to remove the non-combatants, which reasonable request General Morgan granted. Humane considerations are never inopportune. By the time that the non-combatants were safely removed, the column had become straightened out on the new road, and the skirmishers, after they had burned a bridge or two, were withdrawn.

We encamped that night at 12 p.m., and moved next morning at 3. The fatigue of the marches, from the date of the crossing of the Ohio to the period of the close of the raid, was tremendous. We had marched hard in Kentucky, but we now averaged twenty-one hours in the saddle. Passing through Dupont a little after daylight, a new feature in the practice of appropriation was developed. A large meat packing establishment was in this town, and each man had a ham slung at his saddle. There was no difficulty at any time in supplying men and horses, in either Indiana or Ohio—forage and provisions were to be had in abundance, stop where we would. There is a custom prevailing in those States, which is of admirable assistance to soldiery, and should be encouraged—a practice of baking bread once a week in large quantities. Every house is full of it. The people were still laboring under vast apprehensions regarding us, and it was a rare thing to see an entire family remaining at home. The men met us oftener in their capacity of militia than at their houses, and the "Copperheads" and "Vallandighammers" fought harder than the others. Wherever we passed, bridges and depots, water-tanks, etc., were burned and the railroads torn up, but I knew of but one private dwelling being burned upon the entire raid, and we were fired upon from that one. The country, for the most part, was in a high state of cultivation, and magnificent crops of wheat, especially, attracted our notice on all sides.

What was peculiarly noticeable, however, to men who were fighting against these people, and just from thinned out "Dixie," was the dense population, apparently untouched by the demands of the war. The country was full, the towns were full, and the ranks of the militia were full. I am satisfied that we saw often as many as ten thousand militia in one day, posted at different points. They would frequently fight, if attacked in strong position, but could be dispersed by maneuvering. Had they come upon us as the fierce Kentucky Home-guards would have done, if collected in such numbers, we could not have forced our way through them.

In this immediate country had been recruited the regiment which burned the homes of Company F, the Mississippi company of the Second Kentucky. Colonel Grigsby was detached with his regiment to press on and burn the bridges near Versailles. He dashed into the town, where several hundred militia were collected devising the best means of defending the place, and broke up the council. He captured a large number of horses, rather better stock than had hitherto been procured in Indiana. Marching on steadily all day and the greater part of the next night, we reached a point on the Ohio and Mississippi road, twenty-five miles from Harrison, called Summansville. Here twenty-five hundred militia lay loaded into box cars. We halted to rest, and, unconscious of our presence, although we were close upon them, they moved off in the morning toward Cincinnati. Moving at 5 a.m., we reached Harrison by one o'clock of the 13th. Here General Morgan began to maneuver for the benefit of the commanding officer, at Cincinnati. He took it for granted (for it was utterly impossible moving as rapidly as we were forced to do, and in the midst of a strange and hostile population, to get positive information regarding any matter), that there was a strong force of regular troops in Cincinnati. Burnside had them not far off, and General Morgan supposed that they would, of course, be brought there. If we could get past Cincinnati safely, the danger of the expedition, he thought, would be more than half over. Here he expected to be confronted by the concentrated forces of Judah and Burnside, and he anticipated great difficulty in eluding or cutting his way through them. Once safely through this peril, his escape would be certain, unless the river remained so high that the transports could carry troops to intercept him at the upper crossings. The cavalry following in his rear could not overtake him as long as he kept in motion, and the infantry could not be transported so rapidly by rail to the eastern part of the State that it could be concentrated in sufficient strength to stop him. His object, therefore, entertaining these views and believing that the great effort to capture him would be made as he crossed the Hamilton and Dayton railroad, was to deceive the enemy as to the exact point where he would cross this road, and denude that point as much as possible of troops. He sent detachments in various directions, seeking, however, to create the impression that he was marching to Hamilton.

After two or three hours' halt at Harrison, the division moved directly toward Cincinnati, the detachment coming in in the course of that afternoon. Hoping that his previous demonstrations would induce the sending of the bulk of the troops up the road, and that if any were left at Cincinnati his subsequent threatening movements would cause them to draw into the city, remain on the defensive, and permit him to pass around it without attacking him, he sought to approach the city as nearly as possible without actually entering it and involving his command in a fight with any garrison which might be there. He has been sometimes accused of a lack of enterprise in not capturing Cincinnati. It must be remembered that Cincinnati was not the objective point of this raid; it was not undertaken to capture that city. General Morgan knew nothing, and, in the nature of things, could know nothing of the condition of affairs in the city, or whether it was weakly or strongly garrisoned.

Starting that morning from a point fifty miles distant from Cincinnati, and reaching the vicinity of the city after nightfall, he must have possessed more than human means of obtaining information, had he known these things then, and he did not have a rapping medium on his staff. Moreover, of the twenty-four hundred and sixty effectives with which he had started, he had not two thousand left. He could get fights enough to employ this force handsomely, without running into a labyrinth of streets, and among houses (each one of which might be made a fortification), with the hope that the town might be unoccupied with troops, or that it might be surrendered. Our "Copperhead friends," who could have given us the necessary information, were too loyal, or too busy dodging Burnside's Dutch corporals to come out.

The men in our ranks were worn down and demoralized with the tremendous fatigue, which no man can realize or form the faintest conception of until he has experienced it. It is as different from the fatigue of an ordinary long march, followed by some rest, as the pain given by an hour's deprivation of water is unlike the burning, rabid thirst of fever. Had the city been given up to us, and had the least delay occurred in getting boats with which to cross the river, the men would have scattered to all quarters of the city, and twenty-four hours might have been required to collect them. In that time the net would have been drawn around us. But it must be borne in mind (independently of all these considerations) that General Morgan had given himself a particular work to accomplish. He determined, as has been stated, to traverse Ohio.

To have recrossed the river at Cincinnati, would have shortened the raid by many days, have released the troops pursuing us, and have abandoned the principal benefits expected to be derived from the expedition.

In this night march around Cincinnati, we met with the greatest difficulty in keeping the column together. The guides were all in front with General Morgan, who rode at the head of the second brigade then marching in advance. This brigade had no trouble consequently. But the first brigade was embarrassed beyond measure. Cluke's regiment was marching in the rear of the second brigade, and if it had kept closed up, we would have had no trouble, for the entire column would have been directed by the guides. But this regiment, although composed of superb material, and unsurpassed in fighting qualities, had, from the period of its organization, been under lax and careless discipline, and the effect of it was now observable. The rear companies straggled, halted, delayed the first brigade, for it was impossible to ascertain immediately, whether the halt was that of the brigade in advance, or only of these stragglers, and when forced to move on, they would go off at a gallop. A great gap would be thus opened between the rear of one brigade and the advance of the other, and we who were behind were forced to grope our way as we best could. When we would come to one of the many junctions of roads which occur in the suburbs of a large city, we would be compelled to consult all sorts of indications in order to hit upon the right road. The night was intensely dark, and we would set on fire large bundles of paper, or splinters of wood to afford a light. The horses' tracks (on roads so much traveled), would give us no clue to the route which the other brigade had taken, at such points, but we could trace it by noticing the direction in which the dust "settled," or floated. When the night is calm, the dust kicked up by the passage of a large number of horses will remain suspended in the air for a considerable length of time, and it will also move slowly in the same direction that the horses which have disturbed it have traveled. We could also trace the column by the slaver dropped from the horses' mouths. It was a terrible, trying march. Strong men fell out of their saddles, and at every halt the officers were compelled to move continually about in their respective companies and pull and haul the men who would drop asleep in the road—it was the only way to keep them awake. Quite a number crept off into the fields and slept until they were awakened by the enemy. The rear of the first brigade was prevented from going to pieces, principally by the energetic exertions of Colonel Grigsby. Major Steele was sent in the extreme advance to drive pickets, scouts, and all parties of the enemy which might be abroad from the road. He was given a picked body of men, and executed the mission in fine style.

At length day appeared, just as we reached the last point where we had to anticipate danger. We had passed through Glendale and across all of the principal suburban roads, and were near the Little Miami Railroad. Those who have marched much at night, will remember that the fresh air of morning almost invariably has a cheering effect upon the tired and drowsy, and awakens and invigorates them. It had this effect upon our men on this occasion, and relieved us also from the necessity of groping our way.

We crossed the railroad without meeting with opposition, and halted to feed the horses in sight of Camp Dennison. After a short rest here, and a picket skirmish, we resumed our march, burning in this neighborhood a park of Government wagons. That evening at 4 p.m. we were at Williamsburg, twenty-eight miles east of Cincinnati, having marched, since leaving Summansville, in Indiana, in a period of about thirty-five hours, more than ninety miles—the greatest march that even Morgan had ever made.

Feeling comparatively safe here, General Morgan permitted the division to go into camp and remain during the night. One great drawback upon our marches, was the inferiority of the Indiana and Ohio horses for such service. After parting with our Kentucky stock, the men were compelled to exchange constantly. Sometimes three or four times in twenty four hours. The horses obtained were, not only unable to endure the hard riding for a reasonable length of time, but they were also unshod and grew lame directly. After leaving Williamsburg, we marched through Piketon (Colonel Morgan was sent with his regiment by way of Georgetown), Jackson, Vinton and Berlin (at which latter place we had a skirmish with the militia), and several towns whose names I have forgotten, as well as the order in which they came. In the skirmish at Berlin, Tom Murphy, popularly known as the "Wild Irishman," and technically described by his officers as the "goingest man" (in the advance-guard), was severely wounded. Small fights with the militia were of daily occurrence. They hung around the column, wounding two or three men every day and sometimes killing one. We captured hundreds of them daily, but could only turn them loose again after destroying their guns.

On one occasion a very gallant fellow of the Second Kentucky, Charlie Haddox, came upon five of them, who had made some of the command prisoners. He captured them, in turn, and brought them in. The prisoners who could be taken by such men hardly deserved to be released. Two men distinguished themselves very much as advance videttes, privates Carneal Warfield and Burks. The latter frequently caused the capture of parties of militia, without blood-shed on either side, by boldly riding up to them, representing himself as one of the advance guard of a body of Federal cavalry, and detaining them in conversation until the column arrived. But it is impossible to recount the one tenth part of the incidents of this nature which occurred. At Wilkesville we halted again before nightfall, and remained until 3 o'clock next morning. The militia, about this time, turned their attention seriously to felling trees, tearing up bridges, and impeding our progress in every conceivable way. The advance guard was forced to carry axes to cut away the frequent blockades. In passing near Pomeroy, on the 18th, there was one continual fight, but, now, not with the militia only, for some regular troops made their appearance and took part in the programme. The road we were traveling runs for several miles at no great distance from the town of Pomeroy, which is situated on the Ohio river. Many by-roads run from the main one into the town, and at the mouths of these roads we always found the enemy. The road runs, also, for nearly five miles through a ravine, and steep hills upon each side of it. These hills were occupied, at various points, by the enemy, and we had to run the gauntlet. Colonel Grigsby took the lead with the Sixth Kentucky, and dashed through at a gallop, halting when fired on, dismounting his men and dislodging the enemy, and again resuming his rapid march. Major Webber brought up the rear of the division and held back the enemy, who closed eagerly upon our track.

About 1 o'clock of that day we reached Chester and halted, for an hour and a half, to enable the column to close up, to breathe the horses, and also to obtain a guide, if possible (General Morgan declaring that he would no longer march without one). That halt proved disastrous—it brought us to Buffington ford after night had fallen, and delayed our attempt at crossing until the next morning.

Before quitting Ohio, it is but just to acknowledge the kind hospitality of these last two days. At every house that we approached, the dwellers thereof, themselves absent, perhaps unable to endure a meeting that would have been painful, had left warm pies, freshly baked, upon the tables. This touching attention to our tastes was appreciated. Some individuals were indelicate enough to hint that the pies were intended to propitiate us and prevent the plunder of the houses.

We reached Portland, a little village upon the bank of the river, and a short distance above Buffington Island, about 8 p.m., and the night was one of solid darkness. General Morgan consulted one or two of his officers upon the propriety of at once attacking an earthwork, thrown up to guard the ford. From all the information he could gather, this work was manned with about three hundred infantry—regular troops—and two heavy guns were mounted in it. Our arrival at this place after dark had involved us in a dilemma. If we did not cross the river that night, there was every chance of our being attacked on the next day by heavy odds. The troops we had seen at Pomeroy were, we at once and correctly conjectured, a portion of the infantry which had been sent after us from Kentucky, and they had been brought by the river, which had risen several feet in the previous week, to intercept us. If transports could pass Pomeroy, the General knew that they could also run up to the bar at Buffington Island. The transports would certainly be accompanied by gunboats, and our crossing could have been prevented by the latter alone, because our artillery ammunition was nearly exhausted—there was not more than three cartridges to the piece, and we could not have driven off gunboats with small arms. Moreover, if it was necessary, the troops could march from Pomeroy to Buffington by an excellent road, and reach the latter place in the morning. This they did. General Morgan fully appreciated these reasons for getting across the river that night, as did those with whom he advised, but there were, also, very strong reasons against attacking the work at night; and without the capture of the work, which commanded the ford, it would be impossible to cross. The night, as I have stated, was thoroughly dark. Attacks in the dark are always hazardous experiments—in this case it would have been doubly so. We knew nothing of the ground, and could not procure guides. Our choice of the direction in which to move to the attack would have been purely guess work. The defenders of the work had only to lie still and fire with artillery and musketry directly to their front, but the assailants would have had a line to preserve, and would have had to exercise great care lest they should fall foul of each other in the obscurity. If this is a difficult business at all times, how much is the danger and trouble increased when it is attempted with broken-down and partially demoralized men?

General Morgan feared, too, that if the attacking party was repulsed, it would come back in such disorder and panic that the whole division would be seriously and injuriously affected. He determined, therefore, to take the work at early dawn and instantly commence the crossing, trusting that it would be effected rapidly and before the enemy arrived. By abandoning the long train of wagons which had been collected, the wounded men, and the artillery, a crossing might have been made, with little difficulty, higher up the river at deeper fords, which we could have reached by a rapid march before the enemy came near them. But General Morgan was determined (after having already hazarded so much) to save all if possible, at the risk of losing all. He ordered me to place two regiments of my brigade in position, as near the earthwork as I thought proper, and attack it at daybreak. I accordingly selected the Fifth and Sixth Kentucky, and formed them about four hundred yards from the work, or from the point where I judged it to be located. Lieutenant Lawrence was also directed to place his Parrots upon a tongue of land projecting northward from a range of hills running parallel with the river. It was intended that he should assist the attacking party, if, for any reason, artillery should be needed. Many efforts were made, during the night, to find other fords, but unsuccessfully.

As soon as the day dawned, the Fifth and Sixth Kentucky were moved against the work, but found it unoccupied. It had been evacuated during the night. Had our scouts, posted to observe it, been vigilant, and had this evacuation, which occurred about two p.m., been discovered and reported, we could have gotten almost the entire division across before the troops coming from Pomeroy arrived. The guns in the work had been dismounted and rolled over the bluff. I immediately sent Gen. Morgan information of the evacuation of the work, and instructed Colonel Smith to take command of the two regiments and move some four or five hundred yards further on the Pomeroy road, by which I supposed that the garrison had retreated. In a few minutes I heard the rattle of musketry in the direction that the regiments had moved, and riding forward to ascertain what occasioned it, found that Colonel Smith had unexpectedly come upon a Federal force advancing upon this road. He attacked and dispersed it, taking forty or fifty prisoners and a piece of artillery, and killing and wounding several. This force turned out to be General Judah's advance guard, and his command was reported to be eight or ten thousand strong, and not far off. Among the wounded was one of his staff, and his Adjutant-General was captured. I instructed Colonel Smith to bring the men back to the ground where they had been formed to attack the work, and rode myself to consult General Morgan and receive his orders. He instructed me to hold the enemy in check, and call for such troops as I might need for that purpose. This valley which we had entered the night before, and had bivouacked in, was about a mile long, and perhaps eight hundred yards wide at the southern extremity (the river runs here nearly due north and south), and gradually narrows toward the other end, until the ridge, which is its western boundary, runs to the water's edge. This ridge is parallel with the river at the southern end of the valley, but a few hundred yards further to the northward both river and ridge incline toward each other. About half way of the valley (equi-distant from either end) the road, by which we had marched from Chester, comes in.

Colonel Smith had posted his men, in accordance with directions given him, at the southern extremity of the valley, with the ridge upon his right flank. At this point the ridge, I should also state, bends almost at right angles to the westward. As I returned from consultation with General Morgan, I found both of the regiments under Colonel Smith in full retreat. When the main body of the enemy (which was now close upon us) appeared, an order had been issued by some one to "rally to horses." While doing this, the line was charged by the enemy's cavalry, of which they had three regiments, two of them, the Seventh and Eighth Michigan, were very fine ones. A detachment of the Fifth Indiana (led by a very gallant officer, Lieutenant O'Neil) headed this charge. The men rallied and turned, as soon as called on to do so, and had no difficulty in driving back the cavalry, but a portion of the Fifth Kentucky was cut off by this charge, and did not take part in the fight which succeeded. These two regiments were not more than two hundred and fifty strong each, and they were dismounted again, and formed across the valley. The Parrot guns had been captured, and, although our line was formed close to them, they were not again in our possession. I sent several couriers to General Morgan, asking for the Second Kentucky, a portion of which I wished to post upon the ridge, and I desired to strengthen the thin, weak line with the remainder. Colonel's Johnson's rear videttes (still kept during the night upon the Chester road) had a short time previously been driven in, and he had formed his brigade to receive the enemy coming from that direction. Colonel Johnson offered me a detachment of his own brigade with which to occupy the part of the ridge immediately upon my right—the necessity of holding it was immediately apparent to him. Believing that the Second Kentucky would soon arrive, I declined his offer.

The force advancing upon the Chester road was General Hobson's, which our late delays had permitted to overtake us. Neither Judah nor Hobson was aware of the other's vicinity, until apprised of it by the sound of their respective guns. We could not have defeated either alone, for Judah was several thousand strong, and Hobson three thousand. We were scarcely nineteen hundred strong, and our ammunition was nearly exhausted—either shot away or worn out in the pouches or cartridge-boxes. The men, had on an average, not more than five rounds in their boxes. If, however, either Judah or Hobson had attacked us singly, we could have made good our retreat, in order, and with little loss.

The attack commenced from both directions, almost simultaneously, and at the same time the gunboats steamed up and commented shelling us without fear or favor. I heartily wished that their fierce ardor, the result of a feeling of perfect security, could have been subjected to the test of two or three shots through their hulls. They were working, as well as I could judge, five or six guns, Hobson two, and Judah five or six. The shells coming thus from three different directions, seemed to fill the air with their fragments. Colonel Johnson's line, confronting Hobson, was formed at right angles to mine, and upon the level and unsheltered surface of the valley, each was equally exposed to shots aimed at the other. In addition to the infantry deployed in front of my line, the ridge upon the right of it was soon occupied by one of the Michigan regiments, dismounted and deployed as skirmishers. The peculiar formation we were forced to adopt, exposed our entire force engaged to a severe cross fire of musketry. The Second Kentucky and Ninth Tennessee, of the first brigade, were not engaged at all—nor the Eight and Eleventh Kentucky, of the second brigade. These regiments, however, were as completely under fire, in the commencement of the action, as were the others which were protecting the retreat.

The scene in the rear of the lines engaged, was one of indescribable confusion. While the bulk of the regiments, which General Morgan was drawing off, were moving from the field in perfect order, there were many stragglers from each, who were circling about the valley in a delirium of fright, clinging instinctively, in all their terror, to bolts of calico and holding on to led horses, but changing the direction in which they galloped, with every shell which whizzed or burst near them. The long train of wagons and ambulances dashed wildly in the only direction which promised escape, and becoming locked and entangled with each other in their flight, many were upset, and terrified horses broke lose from them and plunged wildly through the mass. Some of them in striving to make their way out of the valley, at the northern end, ran foul of the section of howitzers attached to the second brigade, and guns and wagons were rolled headlong into the steep ravine. Occasionally a solid shot or shell would strike one and bowl it over like a tumbled ten-pin. All this shelling did little damage, and only some twenty-odd men were killed by the musketry—the enemy lost quite as many—but the display of force against us, the cross fire, and our lack of ammunition, seriously disheartened the men, already partially demoralized by the great and unremitted fatigue.

The left flank of my line, between which and the river there was an interval of at least three hundred yards, was completely turned, and the Sixth Kentucky was almost surrounded. This regiment (under the command of Major William Bullitt, an officer of the calmest and most perfect bravery), behaved nobly. It stood the heavy attack of the enemy like a bastion. At length seeing that General Morgan had gotten out of the valley with the rest of the division, Colonel Johnson and myself, upon consultation, determined to withdraw simultaneously. We had checked this superior force for more than half an hour—which, as much as our assailants boasted of their victory, was quite as good as an equal number of the best of them could have done against such odds.

The men were remounted without confusion, and retreated in column of fours from right of companies, and for quite a mile in perfect order. The Sixth Kentucky formed to the "rear into line" three times, and with empty guns, kept the pursuing cavalry at bay. But when we neared the other end of the valley and saw that there were but two avenues of escape from it—the men broke ranks and rushed for them. In a moment, each was blocked. The gunboats sought to rake these roads with grape—and although they aimed too high to inflict much injury, the hiss of the dreaded missiles increased the panic. The Seventh Michigan soon came up and dashed pell-mell into the crowd of fugitives. Colonel Smith, Captain Campbell, Captain Thorpe, and myself, and some fifty other officers and men, were forced by the charge of this regiment into a ravine on the left of the road and soon afterward captured. Captain Thorpe saved me from capture at an earlier date, only to ultimately share my fate. He had acted as Adjutant General of the First Brigade, since the detachment of Captain Davis, and had performed all of his duties with untiring assiduity and perfect efficiency. On this day, there was allowed opportunity for the display of courage only, and for that he was ever distinguished.

About seven hundred prisoners were taken from us in this fight. Among the officers captured were Colonels Ward and Morgan, Lieutenant Colonel Huffman, who was also severely wounded, and Majors Bullock and Bullitt.

On the next day, the 20th, we were marched down the river bank some ten miles to the transport which was to take us to Cincinnati, and she steamed off as soon as we were aboard of her. A portion of the Ninth Tennessee had been put across the river, in a small flat, before the fight fairly commenced, and these men, under command of Captain Kirkpatrick, pressed horses and made their escape. Colonel Grigsby and Captain Byrnes also crossed the river here, and succeeded in escaping. Between eleven and twelve hundred men retreated with General Morgan, closely pursued by Hobson's cavalry—the indefatigable Woolford, as usual, in the lead. Some three hundred of the command crossed the river at a point about twenty miles above Buffington. Colonel Johnson and his staff swam the river here and got safely ashore, with the exception of two or three of the latter, who were drowned in the attempt.

The arrival of the gun boats prevented the entire force from crossing. General Morgan had gained the middle of the river, and, having a strong horse, could have gained the other shore without difficulty, but seeing that the bulk of his command would be forced to remain on the Ohio side, he returned to it. At this point, a negro boy named Box, a great favorite in the Second Kentucky, thorough rebel and deeply impressed with a sense of his own importance, entered the river and started across; General Morgan called to him to return, fearing that he would be drowned. "Marse John," said Box, "If dey catches you, dey may parole you, but if dis nigger is cotched in a free State he ain't a gwine to git away while de war lasts." He swam the river safely although nearly run down by a gun boat. From this time, for six days, it was a continual race and scramble. That men could have endured it, after the previous exhausting marches, is almost incredible.

The brigades were reorganized. Colonel Cluke was placed in command of the second, Major Webber of the first, each was a little more than four hundred strong. "The bold Cluke" had need of all of his audacity and vigor during these six days of trial. It is impossible for the reader to appreciate the true condition in which these brave men were placed. Worn down by tremendous and long sustained exertion, encompassed by a multitude of foes, and fresh ones springing up in their path at every mile, allowed no rest, but driven on night and day; attacked, harassed, intercepted at every moment, disheartened by the disasters already suffered—how magnificent was the nerve, energy and resolution which enabled them to bear up against all this and struggle so gallantly to the very last against capture. Major Webber had long been suffering from a painful and exhausting disease, and when he started upon the raid he could not climb into his saddle without assistance. But he could not endure the thought of being absent from such an expedition. He was one of the very best officers in the Confederate cavalry, and his ideas of duty were almost fanatical. All through the long march to Buffington, he rode at the head of the "old regulars," without a murmur escaping his lips to tell of the pain which paled his brave, manly face, but could not bend his erect form. Of his conduct after the Buffington disaster, General Morgan, and his comrades spoke in enthusiastic praise—one officer in describing his unflinching steadiness called him the "Iron man." No description could do justice to these six days, and I will not attempt one. One incident will serve to show how constantly the enemy pressed the command. Once, when there seemed leisure for it, General Morgan called a council of his officers. While it was in session, the enemy were skirmishing with the advance and rear-guards of the column, and were upon both flanks. A bullet struck within two inches of the General's head, while he was courteously listening to an opinion. When the council was closed, General Morgan moved the column back toward "Blennerhassett's Island," where he had previously attempted to cross the river. Clouds of dust marked his march (although he quitted the main road) and also the track of his enemies, and in that way the exact position of all the columns was known to each. That night he halted with a bold mountain upon one side of him and the enemy on the other three. His pursuers evidently thought that the morning would witness his surrender, for they made no effort to force him to yield that evening. But when night had fairly fallen and the camp fires of his foes were burning brightly, he formed his men, partially ascended the mountain, stole noiselessly and in single file along its rough slope and by midnight was out of the trap, and again working hard for safety.

Here is a description from Major Webber's diary, of how General Morgan eluded the enemy posted to ensnare him when he should cross the Muskingum. He had been compelled to drive off a strong force in order to obtain a crossing; after he had crossed he found himself thus situated. "The enemy had fallen back on all of the roads—guarding each one with a force in ambush much larger than ours—and to make our way through seemed utterly impossible; while Hobson had made his appearance with a large force on the opposite bank of the Muskingham so that to retrace our steps would be ruin. Finding every road strongly guarded, and every hill covered with troops, it would have been impossible for any one except Morgan to have led a column out of such a place, and he did it by what the citizens tell us, is the only place which a horse can go; and that down a narrow pass leading up a narrow spring branch hundreds of feet below the tops of the hills, the perpendicular sides of which pressed closely on our horses as we passed in single file. And then we went up another hill, or rather mountain side, up which nobody but a Morgan man could have carried a horse. Up that hill, for at least one thousand feet, we led our tired horses, where it seemed that a goat couldn't climb, until we reached the plain, and were soon in the rear of the enemy and on our road again. Colonel Cluke who was in the rear lost two men killed.

In looking around for a place to carry the column, Adjutant S.F. McKee and two of our men ran into an ambuscade, and were fired on, about thirty yards distant, by three hundred men, without striking either of them or their horses." But all this brave, persistent effort, was unavailing. General Morgan maintained his high spirit to the last, and seemed untouched by the weariness which bore down every one else, but he was forced at last to turn at bay, and a fresh disaster on the 26th, reducing his command to two hundred and fifty men, and a fresh swarm of enemies gathering around this remnant, left him no alternative (in justice to his men) but surrender. I may be permitted to mention (with natural pride), that the last charge made upon this expedition, was made by Company C, of my old regiment, the Second Kentucky, the "Regulars." This company had maintained its organization and discipline without any deterioration, although greatly reduced in numbers. In this last fight, it was ordered to charge a body of Federal cavalry, who were dismounted and lay behind a worm fence, firing upon the column with their Spencer rifles. Led by its gallant Captain, Ralph Sheldon, one of the best of our best, officers, this company dashed down upon the enemy. The tired horses breasted the fence, without being able to clear it, knocking off the top rails. But with their deadly revolvers our boys soon accomplished the mission upon which they were sent.

General Morgan surrendered in a very peculiar manner. He had, many days before, heard of the retreat of General Lee, after Gettysburg, from Pennsylvania, and of the fall of Vicksburg. In at least twenty towns through which we had passed, in Indiana and Ohio, we had witnessed the evidences of the illuminations in honor of these events. He feared that, in consequence of the great excess of prisoners thus coming in Federal possession, the cartel (providing for the exchange of prisoners and the paroling of the excess upon either side, within a short period after their capture) would be broken. He was anxious, therefore, to surrender "upon terms." Aware that he was not likely to get such terms as he wished, from any officer of the regular troops that were pursuing him, unless he might happen to hit upon Woolford, who was as noted for generosity to prisoners (if he respected their prowess) as for vigor and gallantry in the field, he looked around for some militia officer who might serve his turn. In the extreme eastern part of Ohio (where he now was), he came into the "district" of a Captain Burbeck, who had his militia under arms. General Morgan sent a message to Captain Burbeck, under flag of truce, requesting an interview with him. Burbeck consented to meet him, and, after a short conference, General Morgan concluded a treaty with him, by which he (Morgan) engaged to take and disturb nothing, and do no sort of damage in Burbeck's district, and Burbeck, on his part, covenanted to guide and escort Morgan to the Pennsylvania line. After riding a few miles, side by side, with his host, General Morgan, espying a long cloud of dust rolling rapidly upon a course parallel with his own (about a mile distant), and gaining his front, thought it was time to act. So he interrupted a pleasant conversation, by suddenly asking Burbeck how he would like to receive his (Morgan's) surrender. Burbeck answered that it would afford him inexpressible satisfaction to do so. "But," said Morgan, "perhaps you would not give me such terms as I wish." "General Morgan," replied Burbeck, "you might write your own terms, and I would grant them." "Very well, then," said Morgan; "it is a bargain. I will surrender to you." He, accordingly, formally surrendered to Captain Burbeck, of the Ohio militia, upon condition that officers and men were to be paroled, the latter retaining their horses, and the former horses and side-arms. When General Shackleford (Hobson's second in command, and the officer who was conducting the pursuit in that immediate region) arrived, he at once disapproved this arrangement, and took measures to prevent its being carried into effect. Some officers who had once been Morgan's prisoners, were anxious that it should be observed, and Woolford generously interested himself to have it done. The terms of this surrender were not carried out. The cartel (as Morgan had anticipated) had been repudiated, and the terms for which he had stipulated, under that apprehension, were repudiated also.

Although this expedition resulted disastrously, it was, even as a failure, incomparably the most brilliant raid of the entire war. The purposes sought to be achieved by it were grander and more important, the conception of the plan which should regulate it, was more masterly, and the skill with which it was conducted is unparalleled in the history of such affairs. It was no ride across a country stripped of troops, with a force larger than any it should chance to encounter.

It was not an expedition started from a point impregnably garrisoned, to dash by a well marked path to another point occupied by a friendly army. It differed from even the boldest of Confederate raids, not only in that it was vastly more extended, but also in the nerve with which the great natural obstacles were placed between the little band with which it was undertaken and home, and the unshrinking audacity with which that slight force penetrated into a populous and intensely hostile territory, and confidently exposed itself to such tremendous odds, and such overwhelming disadvantages. Over one hundred thousand men were in arms to catch Morgan (although not all employed at one time and place), and every advantage in the way of transporting troops, obtaining information, and disposing forces to intercept or oppose him, was possessed by his enemy, and yet his wily strategy enabled him to make his way to the river, at the very point where he had contemplated recrossing it when he started from, Tennessee; and he was prevented from recrossing and effecting his escape (which would then have been certain) only by the river having risen at a season at which it had not risen for more than twenty years before.

The objects of the raid were accomplished. General Bragg's retreat was unmolested by any flanking forces of the enemy, and I think that military men, who will review all the facts, will pronounce that this expedition delayed for weeks the fall of East Tennessee, and prevented the timely reinforcement of Rosecrans by troops that would otherwise have participated in the battle of Chickamauga. It destroyed Morgan's division, however, and left but a remnant of the Morgan cavalry. The companies in Kentucky became disintegrated—the men were either captured or so dispersed that few were ever again available. Captain Davis crossed into Indiana, with the two companies assigned him, but failed to rejoin the division, and was surrounded by overwhelming numbers, and himself and the greater part of his command captured. Some of the men in those companies escaped—the majority of them returned to the South, others remained in Kentucky to "guerrilla." Two fine companies of the Ninth Tennessee, under Captains Kirkpatrick and Sisson, crossed the river at Buffington; two companies of the Second Kentucky, under Captains Lea and Cooper, effected a crossing a day or two later. Besides these organized bodies of men, there were stragglers from all the regiments to the number of three or four hundred, who escaped. These men were collected by Colonels Johnson and Grigsby, and marched through Western Virginia to Morristown, in East Tennessee, where all that was left of Morgan's command was rendezvoused.

Although the consequences were so disastrous, although upon the greater part of those who followed Morgan in this raid was visited a long, cruel, wearisome imprisonment, there are few, I imagine, among them who ever regretted it. It was a sad infliction upon a soldier, especially upon one accustomed to the life the "Morgan men" had led, to eat his heart in the tedious, dreary prison existence, while the fight which he should have shared was daily growing deadlier. But to have, in our turn, been invaders, to have carried the war north of the Ohio, to have taught the people, who for long months had been pouring invading hosts into the South, something of the agony and terror of invasion—to have made them fly in fear from their homes, although they returned to find those homes not laid in ashes; to have scared them with the sound of hostile bugles, although no signals were sounded for flames and destruction—these luxuries were cheap at almost any price. It would have been an inexpiable shame if, in all the Confederate army, there had been no body of men found to carry the war, however briefly, across the Ohio, and Morgan by this raid saved us, at least, that disgrace.

One of the many articles which filled the Northern papers, upon the disastrous termination of this expedition, prophetically declared the true misfortune which would result to Morgan himself from his ill-success to-wit: the loss of his unexampled prestige—hitherto of itself a power adequate to ensure him victories, but never to be recovered. This writer more sagacious, as well as more fair than others of his class, said:

"The raid through Indiana and Ohio has proved an unfortunate business to him and his command. His career, hitherto has been dashing and brilliant, and but few rebel commanders had won a higher reputation throughout the South. He had been glorified by rebels in arms everywhere, but this last reckless adventure will doubtless rob his name of half its potency. The prestige of success is all powerful, while a failure is death to military reputation. It would now be a difficult matter to rally to his standard as many enthusiastic and promising young men, who infatuated and misguided, joined him during the period of his success. Many of them blindly seemed to entertain the opinion that no reverse could befall him, and all he had to do was to march along, and victory after victory would perch upon his banner. They couldn't even dream of a disaster or an end to his triumphs. Many of them have already sadly and dearly paid for their infatuation, while others are doomed to a similar fate. This remarkable raid, certainly the most daring of the war, is about at an end. Morgan is trapped at last and his forces scattered, and if he escapes himself it will only be as a fugitive. The race he has run since crossing the Cumberland river, eluding the thousands of troops which have been put upon his track, proved him a leader of extraordinary ability. The object of the raid is yet a mystery. Time alone will develop the plan, if plan there was. Moving on with such a force, far from all support—at the very time, too, that Bragg's army was falling back and scattering—makes the affair look like one of simple bravado, as if the leader was willing to be captured, provided he could end his career in a blaze of excitement created by his dash and daring. But it is useless to speculate now. Broken into squads, some few of his men will doubtless escape across the river, and make their way singly to the Confederacy, to tell the story of their long ride through Indiana and Ohio; but the power of the noted partisan chieftain and his bold riders is a thing of the past."