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"Morgan's Men"
A Narrative of Personal Experiences:
Electronic Edition
Stone, Henry Lane, b. 1842
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1997.
© This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching, and
personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.
"MORGAN'S MEN"
A
Narrative of Personal Experiences
By
HENRY LANE STONE
Page 1
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."
Page 2
"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."
Page 3
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
Page 4
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.
Page 5
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-rimmed 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
Page 6
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 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
Page 7
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 occured 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:
We've had only one battle yet, and that was on yesterday at Hartsville,
in this State. I'll give you a short description of it. Day before yesterday
morning at nine o'clock we left camp with all of Morgan's Brigade, except two
regiments (Duke's and Gano's), and also the Ninth
Page 8
and Second Kentucky Regiments of Gen. Roger Hanson's brigade of infantry - in
all about twenty-five hundred men, with five or six pieces of artillery. We
marched through Lebanon, and went into camp after traveling thirty-four miles.
Our battalion and two pieces of artillery were within four miles of the enemy.
The other portions of our force took another route, crossing the Cumberland in
the night and getting in the enemy's rear. We left camp after sleeping one hour
and a half, and got in position in five hundred yards of the enemy at five
o'clock in the morning, before it was light. This hour was set by Morgan to
begin the attack on the enemy on all sides; and well was it carried out,
Morgan's portion firing the first gun. The firing soon became general, and of
all the fighting ever done that was the hottest for an hour and fifteen minutes.
The bombs fell thick and fast over our heads, while Morgan's men yelled at every
step, we all closing in on the Yankees. I fired my gun only two or three times.
We took the whole force prisoners, about twenty-two hundred men, the 10th
Illinois, 106 and 108th Ohio, and two hundred Indiana cavalrymen, with two
pieces of artillery. We took also all their small arms, wagons, etc.
Then occurs in this letter what may seem now somewhat ludicrous, but it
is here and I will read it:
I captured a splendid overcoat, lined through and through, a fine black
cloth coat, a pair of new woolen socks, a horse muzzle to feed in, an Enfield
rifle, a lot of pewter plates, knives and
Page 9
forks, a good supply of smoking tobacco, an extra good cavalry saddle, a halter,
and a pair of buckskin gloves, lined with lamb's wool - all of which things I
needed."
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:
I'll tell you how I've met with a chance to send this to you. It is by a
very gentlemanly Yankee lieutenant whom we captured yesterday who says he'll
mail it to you from Nashville, and I think he'll be as good as his word. I shall
leave it unsealed, and he'll get it through for me without trouble, I think.
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
Page 10
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,
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