During Campbell’s leadership one Shade Combs conceived the grand idea that he was the man who might summarily end the war by killing off certain obnoxious members of the French faction. He communicated his plans to Campbell, who furnished him the required men. But by some means Combs’ intended victims had gotten wind of his scheme and forestalled it in such manner that the hunter now became the hunted. One fine morning, while saddling his horse, a well-directed shot from ambush ended his life.
Such were conditions in Perry County during the summer and fall of 1888. People who had continued entirely neutral, grew exceedingly nervous. One never knew when his turn would come next to die from a shot from the bushes. The law had utterly failed to give the citizens the protection to which they were entitled. The state and county government enforced the collection of taxes but seemed unable to enforce the law. Had the people of Perry County withheld their hands from their purse-strings and refused to pay taxes, we honestly believe that the high authorities would very quickly have found or invented a remedy for the lawlessness which was depriving the State of revenue. The citizens of Perry County would have been justified in a rebellion against taxation, unless the government protected them in their rights. When people are taxed, they in turn are supposed to have their lives and property protected. When one consideration of a contract fails, the other may be avoided.
On the 9th of October, 1888, the news of another assassination increased the terror of the people. Elijah Morgan, a French adherent, a man of courage and unswerving determination, was shot and killed within less than two miles of Hazard—shot from ambush.
On the morning of his death he and one Frank Grace were on their way to town in pursuance of an agreement that had been entered into by him with members of the Eversole faction. Morgan was the son-in-law of Judge Combs, but in spite of all efforts from that direction to throw his influence with the Eversoles he had continued to remain loyal to French and for this he was promptly slain.
His death had been decreed some time before this, but his shrewdness and knowledge of the tactics of his enemies had made him a very slippery proposition. A ruse was, therefore, resorted to. For a short time previous to his death Morgan had frequently expressed his desire for peace, an earnest wish to lay down his arms, and to be permitted to return to peaceful pursuits. This commendable desire on his part assisted his enemies in the formulation of plans for his destruction. They assured him with every pledge of sincerity that he should not be molested; that he might freely come to town whenever he wished; that on a certain day (the day of the murder) if he would meet them at Hazard, they would all renew the friendship that had existed until the feud tore them asunder.
Morgan promised to attend the proposed peace jubilee. Little did he dream that the pretended friends were cold-blooded, calculating enemies, seeking his life under the miserable mask of friendship; that to be certain of success, to avoid any possible miscarriage of the plot, every avenue of escape had been carefully considered and guarded against.
Assassins were placed at various points along the road and at convenient spots in town.
The actors in the tragedy were all at their posts when Morgan stepped upon the scene, unknowingly playing the chief role.
Within less than two miles, in fact, but little more than a mile from town, at a spot where the road is flanked by large overhanging cliffs on one side and the steep river bank on the other, Morgan was fired upon. With a bullet in his back he sank to the ground. A number of shots followed the first one. Grace was driven to cover. Morgan, in his death struggle, rolled over the river bank where a small tree arrested further descent. Grace, not daring to abandon his place of comparative safety, remained a helpless spectator of the agonies of his dying friend.