"That difficulty is easily solved," Wallace replied, with characteristic promptness. "I come to report to you as a Colonel. I come to take orders as such."
General Boyle consulted with his Adjutant-General, and the result was a request that General Wallace would proceed to Lexington with his command. Here was exhibited the ready, self-sacrificing spirit of a true patriot: he did not stand and wait until he could find the position to which his high rank entitled him, but stepped into the place where he could best and quickest serve his country in her hour of peril.
While Wallace was still at the railway-station, he received an order from General Boyle, putting him in command of all the forces in Lexington. Here was a golden opportunity for our young commander. What higher honor could be coveted than to relieve the brave Morgan, pent up as he was with his little army in the mountain-gorges of the Cumberland? The idea fired the soul of Wallace, and he pushed on to Lexington. But here he was sadly disappointed. He found the forces waiting there inadequate to the task: instead of an army, there were only three regiments. He telegraphed for more troops. Indiana and Ohio responded promptly and nobly. In three days he received and brigaded nine regiments and started them toward the Gap.
No one but an experienced soldier, one who has indeed tried it, can conceive of the labor involved in such an undertaking. The material in his hands was, to say the best of it, magnificently raw. Officers, from colonels to corporals, brave though they might be as lions, knew literally nothing of military affairs. The men had not learned even to load their guns. Companies had to be led, like little children, by the hand as it were, into their places in line of battle. There was no cavalry, no artillery. It happened, however, that guns, horses, and supplies intended for Morgan at the Gap were in depot at Lexington. Then Wallace began to catch a glimpse of dawn through the dark tangle of the wilderness. Some kind of order, prompt and immediate, must be forced out of this chaos; and it came, for the master-spirit was there to arrange and compel. He mounted several hundred men, giving them rifles instead of sabres. He manned new guns, procuring harness and ammunition for them from Louisville. Where there were no caissons, he supplied wagons. But his regiments were not his sole reliance; he is a believer in riflemen, a fighting class of which Kentucky was full. These he summoned to his assistance, and was met by a ready and hearty response: they came trooping to him by hundreds. Among others, Garrett Davis, United States Senator, led a company of Home-Guards to Lexington. In this way General Wallace composed, or rather improvised a little army, and all without help, his regular staff being absent, mostly in Memphis.
"Kentucky has not been herself in this war," exclaimed General
Wallace; "she must be aroused; and I propose to do it thoroughly."
"How will you do it?" asked a skeptic.
"Easily enough, Sir. Kentucky has a host of great names. Kentuckians believe in great names. It is to this tune that the traitors have carried them to the field against us. I will take with me to the field all the men living, old and young, who have made those names great. Buckner took the young Crittendens and Clays; by Heaven, I'll take their fathers!"
"But they can't march."
"I'll haul them, then."
"They can be of no service in that way."