A resolution was finally adopted that, when the time came, they all wished Rousseau to raise and command the troops, but that, for the present, it would be impolitic and improper to commence enlisting in Kentucky.
Greatly against his own will, and declaring that he never was so humiliated in his life, Rousseau established his camp on the Indiana shore. After the election, some Secession sympathizers, learning that he proposed to bring his men over to Louisville, protested very earnestly, begging him to desist, and thus avoid bloodshed, which they declared certain.
"Gentlemen," said he, "my men, like yourselves, are Kentuckians. I am a Kentuckian. Our homes are on Kentucky soil. We have organized in defense of our common country; and bloodshed is just the business we are drilling for. If anybody in the city of Louisville thinks it judicious to begin it when we arrive, I tell you, before God, you shall all have enough of it before you get through!"
The next day he marched his brigade unmolested through the city. Afterward, upon many battle-fields, its honorable fame and Rousseau's two stars were fairly won and worthily worn.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch.
King Henry V.
Campaigning in the Kanawha Valley.