Sunday-school, and they attributed Duke’s plans to that young man’s story of how conditions were in Augusta; in other words, that he had acted as a spy for Duke. I said, “Young man, you are mistaken about that matter and your people are mistaken. I was the lad that came through your town and went to Sunday-school, but I had then no idea of Duke’s contemplated fight whatever, and did not know anything about it until after it occurred, so you are all laboring under a mistake in thinking I had anything to do with it.”

ENLISTMENT IN THE CONFEDERATE ARMY.

I arrived at Mount Sterling, and set foot “on my native heath,” in Bath County, within a week after my departure from Indiana.

On October 7, 1862, I enlisted at Sharpsburg in Capt. G. M. Coleman’s company, composed chiefly of my boyhood schoolmates and belonging to Maj. Robert G. Stoner’s battalion of cavalry, which was subsequently, in Middle Tennessee, consolidated with Maj. Wm. C. P. Breckinridge’s battalion, thus forming the 9th Kentucky Regiment in Morgan’s command.

I was appointed sergeant major of Maj. Stoner’s battalion, and served in that capacity until the consolidation mentioned, when I became ordnance sergeant of the regiment. Since the War I have been promoted to the position of “Colonel,” but I never was a Commissioned officer.

THE BATTLE AT HARTSVILLE.

Sixty days after my enlistment our regiment was engaged in its first fight at Hartsville, Tenn., where Col. Morgan won his commission as brigadier general and achieved, perhaps, his most brilliant victory by killing and wounding over four hundred of the enemy and capturing two splendid Parrott guns with more than two thousand prisoners. On the day after this battle, I wrote a letter to my father and mother (the original of which has been preserved), headed as follows: “In camp two miles from Gen. Morgan’s headquarters and eight miles from Murfreesboro on the Lebanon Pike, Monday, December 8, 1862.” The fight occurred on Sunday.

Among other things, I gave in this letter the following account of our engagement at Hartsville, which may serve to illustrate the exuberance of spirits felt over that victory by a soldier of twenty years of age, after only two months’ service:

Then occurs in this letter what may seem now somewhat ludicrous, but it is here and I will read it:

The officers of the forces captured were paroled and sent through the lines. One of them promised to see that this letter reached its destination, and in it I stated:

But he failed to discharge the trust he had assumed. Some three weeks afterwards it was found at Camp Chase, Ohio, and sent to my father by a man named Samuel Kennedy.

THE CHRISTMAS RAID INTO KENTUCKY.

On our celebrated raid into Kentucky during the Christmas holidays of 1862 we captured at Muldraugh’s Hill an Indiana regiment of about eight hundred men, who were recruited principally in Putnam County, many of whom were my old friends and acquaintances. I saw and conversed with a number of them while prisoners in our charge, and had my fellow-soldiers show them as much kindness as possible under the circumstances. This regiment had only a few months before been taken prisoners at Big Hill, Ky., and after being exchanged were armed with new Enfield rifles, all of which fell into our boys’ hands and took the place of arms much inferior.

That was my first acquaintance with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. We burned all the trestles on Muldraugh’s Hill, and thus cut the connections of the Federal army in Tennessee.

THE INDIANA AND OHIO RAID.

There are doubtless some here to-night who were on Morgan’s remarkable raid into Indiana and Ohio, nearly fifty-six years ago. The first brigade crossed the Cumberland River at Burksville, Ky., July 2, 1863, when it was out of its banks, floating driftwood, and fully a quarter of a mile wide. The crossing of our twenty-four hundred men and horses was effected by unsaddling and driving the horses into the swollen stream, twenty or thirty at a time, and letting them swim to the opposite bank, where they were caught and hitched, while the men went over in two flat-boats and a couple of indifferent canoes. I shall never forget the perilous position I was in on that occasion. There were twelve of us, who crossed over between sundown and dark, with our twelve saddles in one canoe. The surging waters came lapping up to within three inches of the edges of the canoe, and on the upper side once in a while they splashed in. The two men at the oars were inexperienced, and made frequent mistakes during the passage, but finally landed us safely on this side. I breathed much freer when I got out.

On this raid, after the disastrous attack of July 4, upon the stockade at Green River bridge, where we lost so many brave officers and men, we, the next day, drove Col. Charles Hanson’s infantry regiment, the 20th Kentucky, into the brick depot at Lebanon, Ky. Our troops surrounded the building, but were greatly exposed to the enemy’s fire, and suffered under the heat of a broiling sun for four hours. Some of our men concealed themselves by lying down in or behind the tents just vacated by the Federal troops. When the order was given by Gen. Morgan to charge the enemy, I witnessed an admirable exhibition of courage on the part of