My mission to Ohio was a purely military one; but I had only one personal adventure, and that was in connection with the Morgan invasion. When the famous and fugacious John was making his raid, I happened to be at my home in Highland county; and as the rebels passed within fifteen miles or less of Hillsboro, of course, I sallied out to see what big things I could do. Everybody and his son were after him, and why shouldn't I go? Mrs. John A. Smith, a patriotic lady in Hillsboro, kindly furnished me a spirited little pony to ride, and in company with several of the young men of the town, I started for the scene of action, supposed to be near Sardinia. When we had passed Mowrytown some distance, we found where the rebels had thrown the fences down, as if to accommodate mounted skirmishers, though it might have been to favor their horse-thieves, but which of these things I do not pretend to say; but this put us on the alert for straggling parties of the enemy. Sure enough, not far from Sardinia, after passing a large body of timber, I espied a number of men, about three hundred yards off; two of them standing in the road, talking to a man in his shirt sleeves, while several others were in the timber. It seemed as though all of them had horses, but some were dismounted. Well, it was a suspicious case. Eyeing them for some moments, I made up my mind that it was a rebel picket post, and so I raised my gun, and blazed away. How they jumped! but they started right toward me. At this time the citizens who accompanied me were a little way behind; so throwing up my hand as a signal for them to stop, I turned my horse, and started back on the jump, attempting to reload my gun at the same time. The motion with the gun gave the pony a scare, and with a couple of quick side-jumps to the right, the little rascal flounced me out of the terrapin-shell saddle, and the next thing I knew, he was making his best time back to Mowrytown. Jumping to my feet, badly "stove up" by the fall, I called out to my comrades: "Stop that horse! stop that horse!" but the more I hallooed, the faster they went, until in a short time they were lost in a cloud of dust.

Thinking the Johnnies were still coming, I bounced over a fence, and off through the woods, to a house, and borrowed a two year old colt to ride back Mowrytown; and at the next place I came to, I borrowed a saddle of a woman, telling about the scrape; and in due course of time I arrived at Mowrytown, where I found my pony, but my comrades, having succeeded in stopping their runaway horses, had again pushed on after Morgan. Hurrying after them, I overtook them at Sardinia, and learned that I had fired on—a lot of citizens; and that, too, within fifteen miles of home. We scoured around till long after night, when I and comrade named McKee, succeeded in overhauling them. A couple of darkies, belonging to Morgan's command, with horses and equipments, had wandered into a settlement of blacks in that neighborhood, and some of the citizens thought they had been sent as spies, and that some of Morgan's men intended to make a raid on the village and carry off some of our black folks into slavery. Not caring to have our black folks reduced to servitude, we started after the supposed spies, and after a sharp chase, caught one of them, and got both horses; and the other afterward came in and gave himself up. The horses belonged to Captain Thorpe, of Morgan's command; and one contraband was his servant. We thought we ought to be allowed to keep the horses, which were fine Kentucky stock, and so stated our claims to Governor Tod; but that honest functionary failed to get the matter before his obtuse official optics in that light, and so we had to give them up. McKee couldn't see the profit of the chase; but I told him that must consist in glory; that the credit of fighting to save the Union, was pay enough for any man. He admitted that point, but said, dolefully, that it was poor pay. After all my running around, however, I did not get to see a Morgan man, except in the distance. It will hardly be necessary for me, after this story, to say that mine was not the party that captured John and his command; but we were willing souls, nevertheless.