A telegram last night brought the melancholy news of the death of Lieutenant Alexander McFerson to his friends in this city. He died at Lagrange, Tennessee, on the 27th ult. at the age of seventeen.
When he asked permission to join the army he said that he felt it his duty to go into the service; that neither of his mother's sons were there, and he would never feel satisfied unless he did his share in putting down the rebellion. Less than two months ago he left his friends and home, buoyant in health, and with high hopes of a pleasant and useful career in the grand army of the Mississippi, having been appointed commissary to the Twenty-fifth Indiana Volunteers. But how soon those hopes are blasted, how soon that health is destroyed by a fatal disease. In early youth, he is cut off. Young McFerson was a generous, noble youth, warm-hearted, and highly esteemed by the whole community, who will warmly sympathize with his bereaved friends in this hour of their affliction.
VI
GUERRILLA WARFARE IN KENTUCKY
When I arrived at Evansville in July, 1863, on furlough, I found the border country on both sides of the Ohio River in Indiana and Kentucky in a state of feverish excitement. The counties of western Kentucky were overrun with Confederate soldiers, who had secretly and singly passed through the military lines, and were engaged actively in the work of securing recruits for the rebel army, and, after mounting them on horses taken from loyal citizens, sent them back through the lines to the South. Guerrilla bands were roaming through these counties, terrorizing the Union men, and threatening to cross the Ohio. In fact, about the time of my arrival at home a small guerrilla force had occupied Newburg, a town nine miles above Evansville, and robbed the stores, striking terror into the inhabitants.
As no regular forces were available for defense, Governor Morton had rushed several bodies of Home Guards to Evansville, and was organizing thirty and sixty days' men for service in various parts of Indiana, to serve until the Federal Government was able to protect the disturbed districts by regularly organized and armed troops. General Love, who had charge of these State forces, with his headquarters at Evansville, requested me to take command of these irregular levies, and occupy Henderson, the most important town in that section of Kentucky, ten miles below Evansville on the Ohio River, as a base for operations against these marauding rebels. This I consented to do, as a temporary expedient.
On the 26th of July, a few days after we had occupied Henderson, Governor Morton repeated from Indianapolis a telegram from General J. T. Boyle at Louisville, commanding the United States military forces in Kentucky as follows: "Give the order to Lieutenant-Colonel Foster in my name to command at Henderson." As my furlough from the Twenty-fifth Indiana was about to expire, and neither Governor Morton nor General Boyle would listen to my intimation that I would have to rejoin my regiment, estimating highly the value of my military experience in the absence of other available officers, the Governor secured from General Grant an order detaching me temporarily from the Twenty-fifth Indiana, and authorizing me to continue in the service in Kentucky.
I was clothed by General Boyle with the most drastic authority to put an end to the troubles in western Kentucky. The order above quoted by which I was placed in command at Henderson contained also the following instructions:—
Order the officers in my name to kill every armed rebel offering resistance and all banded as guerrillas. I want none such as prisoners. Order them to disarm every disloyal man.