“MORGAN’S MEN”

PREFACE

This narrative is printed in pamphlet form to comply with the request of numerous friends and to meet the suggestion contained in the editorial notice of the Louisville Evening Post in its issue of May 29, 1919, as follows:

“MORGAN’S MEN.”

“The Evening Post has received a copy of an address delivered a short time ago before the George B. Eastin Camp of Confederate Veterans, by Col. Henry L. Stone, of the Louisville bar, general counsel of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, the address being largely in the nature of a narrative by the speaker of his personal experiences as a soldier in the famous cavalry command of Gen. John H. Morgan.

“The Evening Post much regrets that it can not find the space for this exciting and instructive story. It covers thirty type-written pages, or seven or eight columns in our print, and the story is so well told that we feel that nothing could be eliminated, and all that is possible is to express the hope that either Colonel Stone or the local camp of veterans will later see fit to issue the address in pamphlet form. Certainly we have never seen elsewhere in so condensed a form so vivid a picture of the war-time experiences of those dashing cavalrymen that the people of the South still allude to as “Morgan’s Men.”

“Passing by this narrative as something that one who did not participate therein is incompetent even to review, the Evening Post would call attention, if only for the importance it may have relative to the soldiers now returning to civil life, to the part played in the affairs of Kentucky and the Union by these soldiers of Morgan’s command after the war was over. It was a very creditable part. No doubt there were the few exceptions that prove the rule, but, as a broad proposition, wherever one of “Morgan’s Men” settled, the community gained a good citizen. We will not attempt to call the roll of those who helped to make the history of Louisville in the past fifty years. Many of them, indeed, have passed away—Basil W. Duke, John B. Castleman, George B. Eastin, Thomas W. Bullitt and others whose names recall the best traditions of Louisville. Henry L. Stone remains with us, vigorous in body, keen in mind, always ready to fight, and fight hard, for a good cause, an ornament to the bar and a splendid specimen of that splendid manhood that the soldiers of the Confederacy furnished a reunited country.”

Comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I was asked by Col. Milton, our commander, to give a “talk” to our Camp this evening. I see, though, in his notices which he sent out—I received one—and in the newspapers, he has dignified what I am to say to you as an “address.” I will leave it to you, after I get through, whether it is one or the other, or both.

I regret that I have not had an opportunity to prepare much that would be worth while to my Comrades who are here to-night, but will deal with some of my own experiences during the Civil War and give you a narrative of them. This I will undertake to do, with the hope my account may prove somewhat interesting to you. I can only vouch for the truthfulness of what I shall detail from my own personal knowledge.

There is no tie of friendship so strong and lasting as that wrought by a common service among soldiers engaged in a common cause. Time and distance are powerless to sever such a tie or to erase from memory the vivid recollections of dangers encountered and hardships endured.

On a September night nearly fifty-eight years ago, John H. Morgan led forth from the City of Lexington his little squadron of faithful followers, who formed the nucleus of that gallant command which afterward, under his matchless leadership, executed so many brilliant military achievements and won for him and themselves imperishable renown. Gen. Morgan’s bold, original, and skillful methods of warfare attracted the admiration of thousands of young men in Kentucky, and even other States, who enthusiastically gathered under his banner.

EARLY TRAINING. ADVOCATE OF STATE RIGHTS.

As already stated, I propose on this occasion to give an account of some of my own experiences as one of Morgan’s Men. A native of Bath County, Ky., when a boy nine years old, I became a resident of Putnam County, Ind., to which State my father removed in the autumn of 1851. In the presidential campaign of 1860, at the age of eighteen, I canvassed my County for Breckinridge and Lane. There were three other young men representing the tickets of Abraham Lincoln, John Bell and Stephen A. Douglas, respectively. We styled ourselves: “The Hoosier Boys—All Parties Represented,” and canvassed the County, speaking on Saturday afternoons at as many as ten or a dozen points before the day of election.

When the War between the States came on, I was an earnest advocate of State rights, and determined to embrace the first opportunity offered to go South and enlist in that cause, which I believed to be right. Three of my brothers were in the Federal army, but I could not conscientiously go with them.

LEAVING INDIANA TO JOIN THE CONFEDERATE ARMY.

On September 18, 1862, after the battle of Big Hill, near Richmond, Ky., and the occupation of this State by the forces of Gens. Smith and Marshall, I put aside the study of law, bade farewell to my parents, and left Indiana to join the Confederate army. I came to Cincinnati while it was under martial law, passed the pickets above the city, in a countryman’s market wagon, took a boat at New Richmond, Ohio, and landed on a Sunday morning at Augusta, Ky. That day I attended Sunday-school in Augusta, and walked to Milton, in Bracken County, where I stayed all night. The next day I reached Cynthiana, and found there the first confederate soldiers I ever saw, being a portion of Morgan’s Men under Col. Basil W. Duke. I remember I was struck with the odd appearance of some of these soldiers, particularly observing their large rattling spurs and broad-brimmed hats, many of which were pinned up on one side with a crescent or star.

DUKE’S FIGHT AT AUGUSTA. KY.

This was but a few days before Col. Duke’s desperate fight at Augusta.

An incident occurs to my mind here. Ten years later I was Democratic Elector for the Ninth Congressional District, making a campaign in behalf of Greeley and Brown, and Augusta was one of my points to speak. While at the hotel that night, a young man came to my room and that of Hon. John D. Young, who was the Democratic candidate for Congress and traveling with me, and he told us all about the fight of Col. Duke, what a bloody affair it was, and how the people had noticed a young man a few days before passing through Augusta and going to