Gloucester County Democrat., 1899-03-16

the first soldier was legally mustered
into the service Of either army.
Out on a Kansas prairie stands a
monument TO old John Brown, reciting
the fact, inter ALA, that he commanded
Eat the battle of Ossawatomie on the
30th day of August, 1856.
Whether the opposing commander
has monument do not know.
/ witnessed only one battle during
the civil war. A line in General Basil
w. Dukes entertaining book, Morgan
and His Men, is all that is vouchsafed
to it in the literature of the war, but
surely it was the most astounding mar
tial caper ever cut since Nimrod invent
ed the military art, and it fully illus
trates the Kentuckian's inherent and
ineradicable love of fighting.
/ saw seven home guards charge the
whole of Morgan's cavalry--the very
flower Of Kentucky chivalry.
| was working as 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" as was ever set in a hu-
man head, and during those troublous
days his mind was sadly mixed on the
meum and tuum when it came TO
equines "a remark applicable to many
others besides Morgan, on both sides at
that.
Call, hearing that Morgan was COM
ing, and, knowing his penchant for the
noblest of quadrupeds, ordered me to
mount .'in hot haste" and ''take the
horses to the woods. .
Norsan's Cavalry.
just as had climbed upon mag
ni6eent chestnut sorreI, fit for king 8
charger, and was rounding up the 9TH
ers, looked up and in the level rays of
the setting summer sun saw Morgan s
cavalry in ''all the pride, pomp and cir
eumstance of glorious war riding up
the broad gravel road on the backbone
of long, high ridge, half mile to the
south. Fascinated by the glittering ar
ray, boyhke. forgot Call and the peril
of his horses and watched the gay cayal-
cade.
Suddenly | saw seven horsemen
emerge f1om the little village of Mack
vile and ride furiously down the turn
pike to within easy pistol range of the
Confederates and open fire. I could
hear the crack of the revolYers and see
the flash and smoke, and when Nor
gan's advance guard fell back on the
main body | observed that one rider
less horse went back with them and
that only six home guards rode back to
Mackville in lieu of the seven who had
ridden forth to battle
Morgan's S command halted, deployed
in battle line, and rode slowly up the
hill, while rode a great deal faster to
the woods
The home guards had shot one man
out of his saddle and captured him, and
Morgan had captured one of them.
Next morning the home guards from
their forest fastness sent in a flag of
truce and regularly negotiated an ex-
change of prisoners according to the
rules in such cases made and provided
Of course Morgan would have paid
no attention to the seven men, but he
supposed that even hisown native Ken
tucky never nurture7 seven daredeviis
so reckless as to do thing like that
unless they had an army back of them.
have often thought of that match
less deed of daring and can say in the
language of the Frenchman who wit
messed the charge of the Light brigade
at Balaklava. 1T is magnificent, but
not war.
If that splendid feat of arms had
been performed in New England by
New Englanders, the world could
scarcely contain the books which would
have been written about it. 1t would
have been chronicled in history and
chanted in song as an inexhaustible
tiAeme