Wichita eagle., 1889-05-26
THE KENTUCKY BROTHERS.
An Incident of the Civil War-The Type
of Many.


of Many.
The pleasant community about Hopkins
vile was ''an tore up" as the people said
They really said .'toh' up,n but this is a true
sketch and not dialect story.
''Kaintucky," and il was ''all tore up too. In
deed Hopkinsville and vicinity was only type
of nearly all others in the state, for war had
come almost with the suddenness OF lightning
from a clear sky, and the peoples sympa-
thies were sadly divided Old residents of
the state can now afford to indulge smile
at recollection Of the childlke confidence
with which the people had gone through that
dark and ominous winter; they were, with
exceptions Of course, as positive that Critten-
den would get compromise adopted and the
trouble pass without fight as the average
small boy is that his pap viii fix things
right" So when the slow moving mail OF
those days brought the news that Sumter had
been captured and "a, 900 troops were called
for, there was a commotion such as that
region had not known since the last I'm uns"
were chased across the Tennessee.
As acid and alkai fall apart when the chemi-
cal reagent is applied, so the people fell at
once into hostile groups There wasa brief at
tempt at neutrality, then a final division,
and oh, how painful-the son IN the ranks OF
the Confederacy while the father adhered to
the Union
In the Barrett family there was even more
than the usual painful commotion. Jim, the
big, dashing, chivalrous older brother, sym
pathized with the SOUTH" the father, trained
in the school Of Henry Clay and conservative
by age, adhered to the old flag, while the
women-grieving, loving, but ardent in their
feelingttried to feel that the father was
right, but secretly all the warmth OF their
souls was excited for the one who "went
south" Such family conflicts did not last
long. There was one painful, protracted in
terview, after it few exchanges of short,
sharp phrases, ending with hot denunciation
by the father, and then Jim was gone, and
with him as many Of the irresolute neighbor
boys as he could influence A few days later
he and his squad were enrolled in the cavalry
of the sc. S. A"
''Thank God, Frank is too young to be in
it, and it will all be over before he is big
enough" said the fond mother. But she
knew Frank Us little as the average mother
usually knows son who is away from home
for year at the eventful age of sixteen. A
student in the famed Asbury now De Pauw)
university, Frank had been absorbing all
the atmosphere Of his environment, as Her
bert Spencer would say, ''all the abolition
pizen in Indiany," some of his old neighbors
would say he events Of April and May,
1861, set his soul ON fire; he was wildly, en-
Enthusiastically eager to fight for the Union.
Like many thousand boys Of that age at that
particular time he was sorry it would al be
over before he was old enough to enlist.
They I'll had chance; most men had a
chance before it ended, though the zeal Of
many was modified towards the last Frank
reluctantly promised his mother to stay in
college, but in midsummer his home was In
the Confederate lines and all such promises
were held to be void. Before frost fell he was
with Shackelford and Bristow, learning the
duties of private soldier in the grand army
for the Union.
Three years and a half had passed since
Jim Barrett made his choice and the dread
full days of Franklin and Nashville had come.
The Confederacy was making its last adj
vance, and desperate one it was. The sun
was going down on the first of those murder
GUS battles in Hoods advance, and the dis
patch had already gone north: 1.-The Union
lines are broken" The sadly thinned ranks
of Frank Barrett's regiment were among the
last to leave the field-a little too late, as the
Confederate cavalry came galloping over and
through them. Then, for brief minute or
two, it was man to man; the pistol Of the one
was empty and so was the gun of the other;
it was bayonet against saber