Mexico weekly ledger., 1899-03-23

sane schools played the same games
courted the same girls. danced in the
sane sets, belonged 10 the came lodges
and worshiped in the same churches
Suddenly went cunning for each other
IS remurselessly as red Indians. only
tbsy had q clearer vision and a sureF
aim From the mouth Of the Big
Sandy 10 the mouth Of the Tennessee
there was not a square mile in which
sODe awful act Of violence did not take
place
As al the evil passions Of men were
aroused and an restraints Of propriety
as well as all fear Of law were removed
every latent tendency toward crime
was warmed into life. The land swarm
ed with eutthrozts robbers thieves,
6rebugs and malefzetors Of every de-
gree and kind, who preyed upon the
old. the infrm, the helpless. and com
mitted thousands Of brutal and hefn0us
crimes-in the name Of the Union OF
the southern Confsderscy.
Missouri prior 10 the war was more
a Kentucky colony than anything else
with the Kentucky characteristics,
feuds and sn. Reproduced in stronger
and larger form in her amazingly fertile
soil. So all that go@ before applies TO
Missouri as well as to Kentucky.
From the first Missouri has been the
stormy petrol Of American politics The
richest, the most imperial common
wealth in the Union. her geographical
location always placed her in the thick
Of the hght She was a slave peninsula
jutting out into a free soil sea.
Admission Of California;
The first serious trouble on the slavery
question came with her admission into
the Union and the second over the ad-
mission Of CALIFORNIA; Missouri col
ony. Most people date hOstilities from
SuntsF, April 1851. As a matter Of.
fact, Missouri and Kansas had been
carrying on a civil wal on their own
hook for five or six years before the first
gun was fred in Charleston hsrbor.
II Sir Walter Scott had lived in that
day, he could have found enough ma
tsrial for so novels descriptive Of Dor
der warfare in the forays and exploits
Of the Miss0urians and Kansans before.
the first soldier was legally mustered
into the service Of either army.
Out on a Kansas prairie stands q
monument to old John Brown, reciting
the fact, inter ALA, that he commanded
Fat the battle Of Ossawatomie on the
seth day Of August, 1856"
Whether the opposing commander
has a monument l do not know.
/ witnessed only one battle during
the civil war. A line in General Basil
". Dukes entertaining book Morgan
and His Men, is all that is vouchsafed
to it in the literature Of the wal, but
surely it was the most astounding mar
tial caper ever cut since Nimrod invent |
ed the military art. and il fully iHns-
trates the kentuekisn's inherent and
ineradieable love of fighting. Il
saw seven home guards charge the |
whole Of Morgan's c~avalry-the very
flower Of Kentucky chivalry.
/ was working as a farmland for
one John Call who was the proud own
er Of several fine horses of the famous
copper bottom" breed
Morgan had perhaps as good an eye
for a "saddler a was ever set in a hu- '
man head. and during those troublous
days his mind was sadly mixed on the
meum and tuum when il came TO
quines-a remark applicable TO many
Others besides Morgan. on both sides at
that.
Can, hearing that Morgan was com
ing. and. knowing his penchant for the
noblest Of q~uadrupeds ordered me 10
mount ''in bot haste" and "take the
horses to the woods