Let any man think of what might have been done in May, 1861, with all the men, which were subsequently in the Confederate army, arrayed and pressed on the front. If unarmed, they would have met opponents also unarmed. Men followed the armies in Missouri and picked up guns on the battle field, while the Government was rejecting regiments because it had not arms to give them. Subsequently it found arms easier to be gotten than men.
If Jefferson Davis had possessed one tithe of the unscrupulous ambition of which he has been accused, he would not now be the inmate of a prison. He could have made, with all ease his Government a dictatorate – or turning off the useless and clamorous Congress, as an incumbrance to a Government which (until the war was won) was an experiment, have ruled during the war with a "committee of public safety."
To excite the energies of the people to the utmost, and then direct and employ them by means of some such machinery, was the way to win. But he preferred to believe that the danger was not great. He would have died sooner than assume unconstitutional power. The ardor of the people was rebuffed, and they sank into an apathy, from which they were awakened by terrible disasters, to find themselves encompassed by fierce and hostile armies.
CHAPTER V
In 1857, the company of volunteer militia called the "Lexington Rifles" was organized with John H. Morgan as Captain, it subsequently, upon the organization of the State-guard, became incorporated in that body. It was composed of the finest and most spirited young men of Lexington, and soon won a high reputation for proficiency in drill, and in all the duties taught in the camps of the State-guards, as well as for the intelligence and daring of its members.
From the hour of its organization the men of this company seemed to entertain the profoundest love and admiration for their Captain, and the influence and control they accorded him was not too strongly expressed in the words of their motto, which, written in large letters, framed and hung up in their armory, caught the eye of every visitor and announced, "Our laws the commands of our Captain."
It was with the forty-five or fifty men of this company who unhesitating followed his fortunes when he went to the Southern army, and a few other kindred spirits who immediately attached themselves to him, before he had won rank or fame, that Morgan began his career, and around them as a nucleus he gathered his gallant command. Although thoroughly Southern in sentiment, and frank to the last degree in its expression, the members of the company, with one or two exceptions, made no effort to go South until Captain Morgan signified his readiness to lead them, in this, as in all else, they awaited his decision and directions. The extreme illness of his wife, who died in July, 1861, required, during the early summer, his constant presence in Lexington, and he did not determine to act until after the troops, posted at Camp Dick Robinson and the Home guard organizations, began to give unmistakable evidences of hostility to all persons not "loyal."
When the order was issued for the disarming of the State-guard, Morgan determined to save his guns at all hazards. The State-guard was by this time virtually disbanded, many of its officers of high rank, elected under the impression that they were Southern men, had declared for the other side, and various other influences tended to cripple and demoralize it. An officer then, of that body, who decided to resist the edict, disarming his men and leaving them defenseless, in the reach of armed and bitter political opponents, could look for little backing from his comrades. His best chance was to make his way at once to the Confederate lines in Southern Kentucky. This Morgan resolved to do.
On Friday night, September 20, 1861, he confided to a few of his most reliable and trusted men his determination and plans, and taking the guns from the armory, loaded them into two wagons and started them out of Lexington on the Versailles road under a small guard. The men composing this guard left on such short notice that few of them had time to prepare and carry with them even necessary clothing, scarcely time to take leave of their families. They marched out of town with their cartridge-boxes belted on, their rifles on their shoulders, loaded, and their bayonets fixed. A regiment of Federal troops was encamped that night at the fair ground, about a mile from town, and many of the officers and men were in town at the time the guns were removed. In order to deceive as to his movements and lull any suspicion that might exist of his design to move the guns, Captain Morgan caused twelve or fifteen men to parade and tramp heavily about the armory for an hour or two after the wagons had been loaded and started, and so created the impression that his company was engaged in drilling.
The wagons were not stopped in the town, and only one soldier was encountered who was made prisoner by the escort, carried off some twenty miles, and then released.
Morgan accompanied the wagons for a short distance until it was apparent that there was no immediate danger to be apprehended, and returned to Lexington.
On the next day when it was ascertained that the guns had been taken away, and no trace of them could be discovered, a great excitement was gotten up. That very day had been appointed for their seizure by the authorities, and the authorities had been completely tricked and baffled.
The loyal citizens who had calculated upon witnessing the discomfiture of the "Rifles," and of all their backers, were disappointed, and had the farther mortification of learning that the wagons containing the coveted prizes had passed the night before, in the sight of them all, to a place where they dared not follow. Of course many taunts were flung at the fooled spies, and disappointed patriots; and at length the angry discussions brought on a shooting affray between some of the "Rifles," and a part of the troops and Home-guards. The regiment stationed at the fair grounds, was brought into town to quell this affair, and two pieces of artillery were planted to sweep the principal streets – and from that date, for four years, Lexington was under military rule.
Captain Morgan, for whose arrest an order was immediately issued, communicated during the day with such of his men as desired to follow him, and at nightfall left Lexington with them and rejoined those who had gone before. He passed through Anderson county to Nelson, and halted a few miles from Bardstown. Here he was joined by Captain John Cripps Wickliffe, subsequently Lieutenant Colonel of the Ninth Kentucky Infantry, and a very gallant officer. Captain Wickliffe had determined also to save his guns and take his company, or all that would follow him, to the Confederate army. The greater portion of his company, one of the finest in the State-guards, elected to go with him. Desirous, while about it, of doing a brisk business in guns, he confiscated those of a neighboring Home-guard company, and brought them to Morgan's camp – they were immediately placed in the hands of the unarmed men, who, finding an organized force making for the Confederate lines, attached themselves to it. Many such men, anxious to go South, but afraid to go without a leader, came to this camp during the four or five days that it was maintained.
On account of the kindness and liberality of the people who lived in that neighborhood, and who supplied its inmates with provisions of all kinds, this camp was entitled "Camp Charity," and long will it be remembered.
By the common wish and consent, Morgan took command of all the forces, and when, on Saturday evening, September 28th, he resumed his march, he was at the head of some two hundred men. He encountered no enemy. The Home-guards, who mustered strong in the region through which he passed, thought his force too formidable to attack and kept out of his path. When he would hear of two bodies of them, likely to give him trouble if united, he would pass between them and scare both.
After two days and nights hard marching, he reached Green river on Monday evening, September 30th. He received an enthusiastic welcome from the Confederate troops stationed there, most of whom were Kentuckians, and many of them knew him well.
Colonel Roger W. Hanson, the officer in command, was himself from Lexington, and was a warm personal friend of Morgan.
There were, at Green river, encamped on the Southern side of the stream, at this date, the Second Kentucky Infantry (Hanson's own regiment), six or seven hundred strong, Byrne's Battery, and four companies of Tennessee cavalry.
Colonel Thomas Hunt, an uncle of Captain Morgan, was also there with two companies of the regiment he was then organizing. Of all the general officers (he was made a General) which Kentucky gave to the Confederate service, least justice had been done by fame to Roger Hanson, and it is strange that such should be the case. Not only was he well known, constantly talked of, greatly loved, and ardently admired by the Kentuckians, but his name was familiar in all parts of the army. It is true that his early death blighted the reputation he was rapidly winning, but it is hard for those who knew him to understand how such a man could have failed to attract more general and more lively interest. While a very young man, he served with distinction in Mexico, returning home he indulged for a short period in an erratic career which astonished even the Kentuckians, and suddenly quitted it to beat all rivals at the bar, and become a leading politician. Friends and opponents agreed in pronouncing him one of the most effective speakers in the State. His youth was too much occupied in more agreeable pursuits, to admit of his employing profitably the educational advantages which were offered him, but his mind, although unused to the discipline of study, mastered all that it grappled with. He read less and comprehended more law than any member of the profession in Kentucky. His vigorous native intellect and acute sense, were perhaps more formidable, for this reason. Want of science made his method of attack more original and irresistible. In the contests of the bar and the hustings, he was a sort of heavy armed partisan, his irregular, rapid onslaught crushed opposition. The learning and eloquence of his ablest antagonists availed little against his manly logic, and often sounded like the merest folly after having been subjected to his telling ridicule. All of his ideas seemed clearly defined; his mind was never in a mist. His insight into character was extraordinary, and he had the most remarkable faculty of accurate observation and life-like reproduction, especially of ludicrous traits and scenes. His command of humorous, graphic, forcible expression was unequaled. He had very many noble traits of character. He was candid and truthful to bluntness. His scorn of dissimulation and affectation of any sort, gave his manner and speech a bluffness, and apparent want of sympathy with the feelings of other men, which caused him often to be misunderstood. I believe that he would rather that the whole world should have thought him a scoundrel, than have seemed for one moment, in his own eyes, a hypocrite. His will was dauntless, his resolution inflexible, his courage high. He had little opportunity, during his military life, to show the stuff that was in him, and to prove that he possessed other qualities befitting an officer beside courage and the strictest attention to the instruction, the comfort, and the discipline of his men. Notwithstanding that he was a very strict disciplinarian – and Kentucky troops have little love of discipline – he was very popular with his men. They retaliated by nick-naming him "Bench-leg," or "Old flint-lock," and admired him all the more intensely, the more frequently that he showed them that they could never deceive him nor attempt it with impunity. Once, thinking that the health of his regiment was getting too bad, and that many cases of illness, reported as severe, were but ruses to escape doing duty, he published an order that from that date "there should be but two sick men at the same time in each company," and caused it to be rigidly enforced. No one who ever saw Hanson can forget him. In stature he was a little under the medium hight, and he was powerfully but ungracefully built. His bulky and ungainly form indicated great but awkward strength. His shoulders were huge, round, and stooping, and he sat on his horse in the attitude in which a sick man bends over the fire. His head was large and perfectly round. His complexion was fair and florid, and his eyes gray and full of light. His strong and marked features, when he became excited, worked strangely and apparently without being moved by the same influences, and the alert movement of his head, at such moments, was in singular contrast to his otherwise heavy inactive manner. His face, when he was calm and giving careful attention to any thing said to him, wore a look of exceeding sternness, enhanced by a peculiar twitch of the muscles of the mouth and eye. He had a German face with all the Irish expressions. A wound received in a duel had shortened one leg and gave him a singular gait, something between a jerk and a roll. His voice was deep and guttural, and his utterance rapid, decided, abrupt, like that of a man who meant all that he said, and knew that it would produce an effect. No one could look him in the eye and fail to perceive that he was every inch a man – a strong, brave, manly nature looked out in every lineament of his face. Captain Wickliffe attached his company to the regiment which Colonel Hunt was organizing. Of the stragglers who had come out with Captain Morgan, some went one way and some another – only eight or ten remained with him. Although not yet in the Confederate service, he at once commenced the active and daring work which laid the foundation of his celebrity and brought him at once into general notice. The cavalry which had been stationed there previously to his coming, had confined themselves to doing picket duty, and had never sought or been required to do other service. This monotonous work, altogether devoid of excitement, did not accord with his nature, which demanded the stimulus of adventure; he, moreover, intuitively understood then, and declared the fact since so completely demonstrated, that cavalry can be employed to far better advantage, if kept well out upon the front or flanks of the army to which it belongs, and close upon the enemy, than by exacting of it the sort of duty which can just as well be performed by infantry. The Federal advanced forces were then stationed at Elizabethtown, and were soon pushed to Nolin Creek, distant about twenty-one or two miles from Munfordsville. Captain Morgan had at first not more than twenty mounted men of his own company, but with these and with volunteers from the other cavalry who were inspired by his example, he made frequent "scouts," and watched and reported every thing that transpired upon the front. These "excursions" were undertaken about four or five times in every week, and would usually occupy twenty-four hours. The scouting party would set out at or a little before dark; before reaching the lines of the enemy, some exciting chases would be had after the countrymen who were in Federal pay or sympathy, and who, always on the lookout for us, would start at break-neck speed for the camp of their friends, pursued by our foremost riders. At first they tried to do this courier duty on horseback, but finding that we were better mounted than they were, and that, when hard pressed and forced to take to the brush, their horses were abandoned for ever, they betook themselves to a less expensive mode of conveying information. They were fleet of foot and knew the paths through the thickets and hills perfectly, and it was difficult to follow and impossible to catch them. We, also, had many friends among the country people living near the enemy's camp, and as we would prowl all night around and among the Federal pickets and outposts, seeking to entrap the unwary, many were the secret conferences which we held in the shade of the woods with faithful informants, who generally closed their reports with emphatic adjurations that, "For the love of God," we would never breathe their names.
Once or twice Captain Morgan passed himself as a Federal officer, in close vicinity to their camps, but this ruse could not be repeated often with success. Once we were guided safely out of a very dangerous situation by an intensely "loyal" man who thought he was assisting some friends who had lost their way. When day returned the scouting party would take a position on the "line of retreat" at a convenient but safe distance from the enemy, rest and refresh men and horses, observe closely if there was any unusual movement in the hostile lines, and as the day declined and it became evident that all was likely to remain quiet, it would return to camp. After the first two or three weeks of this sort of service, and its advantages had become apparent, an order was given to turn over to Captain Morgan some thirty "condemned" artillery horses. With a little care and nursing they were rendered tolerably fit for his purposes, and he was thus enabled to mount, the better part of his company. I knew a scout to be performed, with most of the men riding these same rejected horses, of sixty-eight miles in twenty hours. Although these scouts and expeditions were not nearly so exciting as were subsequent ones, when the cavalry of both armies had become more accustomed to them and more enterprising, yet they were very pleasant episodes in the dull tedious life of the camp, and excellent preparation for really hard and hazardous service. Morgan himself derived great benefit from the experience they gave him, for he rarely if ever missed them. He always knew how to direct and how to estimate the scouting duty of his command, one of the most important, by the practical knowledge thus acquired. Nor will it injure any man who is called upon to exercise the duties of a General to take a few lessons in this school. The fatigue and discomfort from want of sleep attending these expeditions to those who went constantly upon them, was almost as great, as that suffered in later and far more difficult service.
The first skirmish in which Morgan's company or any portion of it was engaged, was a very insignificant and bloodless one, and served only to illustrate the character of the apprehensions which are apt to assail raw troops.
It was upon the second or third scout that Captain Morgan had taken, that we for the first time met the enemy. Contrary to the usual practice, the scouting party had started out early in the day; it consisted of some fifteen of Morgan's own company, twenty-five of the Tennessee cavalry, and ten or fifteen volunteers, about fifty in all. After proceeding some twelve miles in the direction of Nolin Creek, the advance of our party suddenly discovered a body of Federal infantry moving down the road toward us. Their bayonets glistening and just perceptible above a little rise three or four hundred yards off notified the videttes of their vicinity. They did not see us, and we immediately dismounted and posted ourselves in the thickets on both sides of the road, sending the horses to the rear under charge of eight or ten men. No plan of battle was adopted, although many were proposed – the various suggestions, however, that were thrown out, in the inspiration of the moment are lost to history. I remember, however, that one man gave it as his decided opinion, that we ought to charge them immediately on horseback, and he then rode rapidly back to Green river to report the situation to Colonel Hanson. Enjoining silence on the talkative, Captain Morgan went forward on foot to a house, about one hundred and forty or fifty yards in front of our position, and looked out from a window, which commanded a full view of their approach, upon the enemy. He saw a body of sixty or seventy, but this came so close upon him that he was compelled to leave the house before he could discover whether it was the advance of another and larger body, or was unsupported. Fortunately he effected his retreat from the house and rejoined his party without discovery by the enemy. The latter continued to march on, past the house, and toward our position, until, within forty or fifty yards of us, something discovered us to them and they halted. Captain Morgan immediately stepped out into the road, fired at and shot the officer riding at the head of the column. Without returning the fire his men fell back to the house before mentioned, situated on a long low knoll, through which, to the left of the house as we faced, was a cut of the railroad. This afforded a pretty good position and one which we should have taken ourselves. Here they deployed and opened a volley upon us, which would have been very fatal if we had been in the tops of instead of behind the trees. Both sides then continued to load and fire rapidly. With us, every man ought to have behaved well, for each acted upon his own responsibility. Captain Morgan with a few of the more enterprising, and one or two personal followers who always kept close to him, worked his way very nigh to the enemy, and did the only shooting that was effective. We had neither drill nor any understanding among ourselves. The fight was much like a camp-meeting, or an election row. After it had lasted about ten or twelve minutes, an intelligent horse-holder came up from the rear, breathless, and announced that the enemy was flanking us, and that he had been largely reinforced. The receipt of this important intelligence necessitated the withdrawal of the forces, and every man withdrew after his own fashion and in his own time. Our loss, was one man slightly wounded and several shot through the clothes. It was as bloody as an affair between Austrian and Italian outposts.
The horse-bolder who brought the information which led to our retreat, was evidently one who had carefully studied the military articles in the newspapers, and spoke from the influence of a sudden recollection of the "science" he had thus acquired, rather than from accurate observation. This may be safely asserted, as we were not pursued by the enemy, and next day, upon returning, learned that they had commenced retreating about the same time that we did, and that they were but a scouting party like ourselves. Two or three men who got first to Green river, before Captain Morgan's report was received there, stated that we had encountered a strong Federal column advancing to drive our forces away from Woodsonville; that we had attacked, and after a hard fight checked it, but that unless Captain Morgan was immediately reinforced it would probably resume its march. This statement created much excitement at Woodsonville, and was generally credited. But Colonel Hanson treated the gentlemen who brought it rather roughly, and said (with an unnecessary reflection on a gallant arm of the service) that it was a "Cavalry Story."
Several days after this affair, Morgan made his first narrow escape of capture. Hanson determined to send a force to the Nolin outposts sufficiently strong to drive them in and create serious confusion and alarm in the Federal camps. He accordingly ordered the Major commanding the battalion of Tennessee cavalry, to take his entire force, about two hundred and forty men, and, conducted by Morgan, who went with twenty of his men, to make the attack upon the outposts. This force started about nightfall. Morgan thinking that there were now men enough upon the road to accomplish some of his most favorite plans, was in high spirits. His own men, who had never in their lives seen so much cavalry on the march, believed the column invincible.
The Tennesseeans who had long murmured at the inaction to which they had been condemned, were anxious for a fight. The Major arranged the plan with Captain Morgan – the latter was to get, with his twenty men, in the rear of the pickets on post, and then fire a gun. At this signal, the Major was to dash down with his battalion, and, picking up the pickets, charge down upon the base and reserve. In the meantime, Morgan expected to entertain the latter with an unlooked-for volley. It was proposed to push the plan as far as possible, even, if the first features were successfully and quickly executed, to an attack upon the camps.
But it happened that some five miles from Nolin, one of the country fellows, who was in the habit of running into the Federal lines at our approach, was surprised and arrested by Captain Morgan who was in the advance.
The women of whom there were several in the house where he was taken, made a terribly outcry and noise, and would not be pacified.
Captain Morgan moved on, but was shortly afterward informed by one of the men, that the Tennessee battalion had turned back. He rode to the Major and urged, but unsuccessfully, that the plan should not be abandoned. Determined, then, to go forward himself, he proceeded to the point where the pickets on the extreme front had usually stood, but they were gone. He halted his detachment here, and taking with him one of his best and most trusted men (private, afterward Captain John Sisson), started down the road on foot to reconnoiter. He had been gone but a short time, when the rear guard of the Tennessee battalion, about twenty strong, came up; it was commanded by Captain, afterward Colonel, Biffel. It seemed that the Major had conceived that the shrieks of the women would notify the enemy of his coming, and prevent his plan of surprising the picket posts and base from succeeding.
Finding that Morgan had still gone on, Biffel took advantage of his position in the rear of the returning battalion and came to support him. As soon as he got up and learned why we were halted, he turned into the thicket with his detachment, on the side of the road, opposite to that occupied by Morgan's. Just as he was doing this, a Federal column of cavalry came up the road, and hearing the noise of horses forcing they way through the brush, halted about one hundred yards from the point where we lay. The night was clear, and we could easily distinguish them in the moonlight. I had been left in command of the detachment, and would not permit the men to fire, lest it should endanger Captain Morgan's safety, who, if we were driven off, would probably be captured. I ordered, therefore, that not a shot should be fired, unless they resumed their march and came right upon us.
They remained at the spot where they had halted for perhaps twenty minutes, apparently in consultation, when they countermarched and went off rapidly. In a few minutes after they had disappeared, Captain Morgan and Sisson returned and gave an account of what had happened to them. They had walked along the road for fifteen or twenty minutes, when suddenly they heard the tramp of cavalry. They were in a stretch of the road darkened for some distance by the shade of heavy timber. This column came upon them, and they slipped aside some ten or fifteen paces into the woods. Captain Morgan estimated it at about one hundred and twenty men. After it had passed, it occurred to him that his men would be attacked by it, and he started back rapidly to rejoin them. The fatigue of running through the woods was soon too much for him and he was compelled to desist.
As he drew near to the point where he had left us and heard no firing, he conceived a true idea of the situation. Stealing cautiously along, he came upon the enemy, who, at the halt, had gone into the woods also. He was then compelled to lie closely concealed and perfectly still until the road was left clear by the retreat of the enemy. Fortunately his proximity was not discovered by the enemy when in this last situation.
Captain Morgan continued actively engaged in this sort of service until the troops were withdrawn from Woodsonville, when he was also ordered to Bowlinggreen. There the men were sworn into the service, the company regularly organized and officers elected. John H. Morgan was of course elected Captain; I was elected First Lieutenant; James West, Second Lieutenant; Van Buren Sellers, Third, or, more properly, Brevet Second Lieutenant. The strength of the company was then a little above the "minimum" required for organization, numbering sixty-seven privates.
Immediately after reaching Bowlinggreen, excellent horses were purchased and turned over to the company, by General Buckner's order, and saddles, bridles, tents, etc., were issued to it. It was already provided with the best guns and accouterments, and when the fitting up at Bowlinggreen was completed, no command in the Confederate service was better equipped, in any respect.
At this period two other companies, one commanded by Captain Thomas Allen of Shelbyville, Kentucky, and the other by Captain James Bowles of Louisville, but principally recruited in the neighborhood of Glasgow, were assigned to Captain Morgan's command at the earnest request of their officers and men. Bowles' company was not full, and was consolidated with another fragment of a company commanded by Lieutenant Churchill – the latter becoming First Lieutenant of the new organization.
The three companies composed "Morgan's Squadron," a popular misnomer by which, however, the command came, in a short time, to be regularly designated. Morgan's company became A, of this organization; Allen's, B; Bowles', C. The squadron remained quietly in camp, at Bowlinggreen, for two or three weeks after its organization. This time was profitably spent in instructing the men in drill and teaching them something of discipline. The first expedition taken after this, was to Grayson county, on the north side of Green river, to collect and bring to Bowlinggreen a large drove of cattle which had been purchased, but could not be brought out without a guard.