It was in April, 1864, when I returned to Kentucky from Canada. While watching a chance to go back to the Confederacy, I worked on a farm three weeks near Florence, in Boone County, a town afterward celebrated, in John Uri Lloyd’s novel, as “Stringtown-on-the-Pike.” While there I visited, on Sundays, my aunt and family, who lived nearby.
BACK WITHIN THE CONFEDERATE LINES.
On General Morgan’s last raid into the State, I joined a small portion of his forces near Mount Sterling, having made my way to them alone on horseback from Boone County. By the way, I got my horse—borrowed it, of course—from the enemy. There were a lot of Government horses in the neighborhood where I was at work. On reaching Virginia, in June, 1864, I attached myself temporarily to Capt. James E. Cantrill’s battalion, which was a remnant of Gen. Morgan’s old command, with which I remained until the following October, when after the defeat of Gen. Burbridge at the battle of Saltville I got with my old regiment, commanded by Col. Breckinridge then forming a part of Gen. John S. Williams’ Brigade. Meantime Gen. Morgan was killed at Greenville, Tenn., on September 4, 1864, where I was present as a member of Cantrill’s battalion (under the command of Gen. Duke, who had been exchanged), and a few days later was one of those who went, with a flag of truce, to recover his dead body, which was sent to Richmond, Va., for burial. After the war it was disinterred and brought to Lexington, Ky., whose beautiful cemetery is its last resting place. In that city in later years, as you know, a magnificent and life-like equestrian monument to our beloved General’s memory was dedicated in the presence of a vast throng of people, including many survivors of his old command.
SHERMAN’S MARCH THROUGH GEORGIA.
We returned to Georgia in time to follow in the rear of Sherman in his “march to the sea.” Under Gen. Wheeler, as we followed in the path of desolation left by Sherman’s army, we were daily engaged with Gen. Kilpatrick’s cavalry, and for eight days were without bread or meat, living on sweet potatoes alone, the only food left from destruction by the Federal troops. The first meat we ate after this fast was some fresh beef, which we found in a camp from which we had just driven the enemy before they had had time to cook and eat it.
THE SURRENDER.
When the news of Gen. Lee’s surrender was received, our brigade was at Raleigh, N. C. President Davis and his Cabinet officers joined us at Greensboro, N. C., and our command escorted them from there to Washington, Ga., where it disbanded. I rode to Augusta, Ga., with Lieut. William Messick, who was from Danville, Ky., and there I surrendered to the 18th Indiana Infantry Regiment, then occupying the city, and received my parole May 9, 1865.
Before we were disbanded at Washington, Ga., the remnants of the funds of the Confederate States, in specie, that had been hauled by wagons through from Richmond, was distributed among the troops at that time. I remember the men of our brigade got $26.00 a piece. Most of it was in Mexican dollars, silver money. I brought it home with me. Fortunately, I had enough to get home on without using that money, and, after our marriage, my wife and I thought it would be a good idea to have that silver made into spoons. We took it down to Duhme & Company, at Cincinnati, and enjoined upon them to use that silver, and no other, in a set of tablespoons, and those spoons are on our table today.
No man can fully or correctly appreciate the value of personal liberty who has never been a prisoner. At least three-fourths of Morgan’s men felt what it was to endure the fearful life of a Northern military prison, and many of them were humiliated by incarceration in the loathsome dungeons and cells of penitentiaries while prisoners of war. Fortunately for me, I escaped from Camp Douglas in time to avoid the starvation policy subsequently inaugurated there, which was said to have been enforced by way of retaliation for the treatment Federal prisoners received at Andersonville, Ga. The difference between the two was that at Andersonville the Confederates did not have the food to give the prisoners, while in the North, the Federal authorities had plenty, and refused to supply it to Confederate prisoners in sufficient quantities. Of the seven members of our mess Clay and I left in Camp Douglas, three died there, one took the oath, and the other three, after twenty-one months of horrid prison life, were exchanged a few weeks before the close of the war. Only one of these three is now alive. He is living in Montgomery County, near Mount Sterling. Of the three who died there, one was James Richard Allen, who, in the presidential campaign of 1860 by the “Hoosier Boys” referred to, was the representative of Douglas; and afterward, in 1862, came South, and joined the Confederate Army as I had done. He had been captured somewhere in Virginia, as I now recall.