Commanding U. S. Force.
“Well,” exclaimed Calhoun, as he glanced at it, “I have often been told that Yankees have cheek, but this is the greatest exhibition of it I have met. Who is H. S. Smith, anyway?”
“One of the numerous Smith family, I reckon,” dryly responded one of his men. “He should have signed it John Smith. This would have concealed his identity, and prevented us from knowing what a fool he is.”
But the message was taken back to Morgan, and Calhoun never saw him laugh more heartily than when he read it.
“Go back and tell Mr. Smith,” replied Morgan, trying to keep his face straight, “that he has made a little mistake. It is he who is surrounded, and must surrender.”
The message was taken back, but Mr. Smith answered pompously that it was the business of United States officer to fight, not to surrender.
“Very good,” replied Calhoun, “get back and let us open the ball.”
It took only a few shells from Morgan’s battery to convince Mr. Smith he had made a mistake, and that it was the business of at least one United States officer to surrender, and not to fight. Six hundred and fifty-two prisoners fell into Morgan’s hands, also a large quantity of military stores. The stores were destroyed. At Elizabethtown Morgan was in striking distance of the object of his expedition, the great trestles at Muldraugh Hill. There were two trestles, known as the upper and lower, both defended by stout stockades.
General Morgan divided his forces, Colonel Breckinridge with one brigade attacking the lower stockade, while Morgan with Colonel Duke’s brigade attacked the upper. A couple of hours of severe shelling convinced the commanders of these stockades also that it was the duty of a United States officer to surrender, and not to fight. Seven hundred more prisoners and an immense store of military goods were added to Morgan’s captures. The goods, as usual, were destroyed.
It was but a few minutes after the surrender of [pg 155]the block-houses when the trestles were a mass of flames. They were immense structures, each nearly fifteen hundred feet long, and from eighty to ninety feet high. Thus the object of the expedition had been gained. Again the Louisville and Nashville Railroad was rendered useless to Rosecrans’s army.