The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-12-29


 A letter written by Judge M. c. Sauhey, of Stanford, Ky, to his daughter, Mrs. T. S. web6y IT,, of Knoxville, Tenn, and read~before the Daughters of the Confederacy, January 1s. 1907.
 Stanford. Ky, Dec. 25. 1906. My Dear Daughter:
 On this Christmas day, 1906, I devote a few hours to a compliance with yoar request for an article embracing my personal recollections of Morgan's raid into Ohio.' I am we'll disposed to- ward this task, for it Is not infrequent- ly pleasure to call up from the mis.s of the past such events of that sweep ing ride. which yet lie within my mem- ory--some of them ludicrous. some pa- thetic and many of them impressive. Not few of these are so indefibly inn pressed that my memory of them Is as clear as if they had occurred but yes- terday. Others are as shadowy as the faces we see in dreams. Doubtless many of them have long since been for gotten, chiefly because the intense weariness of the body during the last days of the raid made me. as well as comrades of tougher fiber, indifferent to even tragical environments. Since time has laid the weight of more than sixty years upon me, the habit of remfni- scence, common to all who have passed the half century mark. has grown apace. Often at night when sleep and rest come tardily, I live again that span of life which covers the transition from boyhood to young manhood. Since that July. forty-three and one-half years ago, when General Morgan began his great raid. a generation of men and women has been born, and they them selves are the fathers and mothers of another and oncoming generation. To these, in the swift rush and~succession of modern events.--this greatest of all faids is only a cold, historic fact. But to those now living who were in 1t and of it, it will ever be regarded both as a sagacious stragetic movement and 2 daring, brilliant episode around which the spirit of romance wiii delight to hover I deem it, therefore. not in- appropriate, though intended to be dis tinctively anecdotaI, to briefly state the chief object of this military movement. Tn a popular sense only can 1t be called a raid. It's purpose was not well understood at the time, and In truth was largely misunderstood. Possibly to this day those who' in historic en ouiry, have penetrated but slightly be- meath the surface, look upon 1t only as q dashing, brilliant exploit without fur ther aim than to Haunt the Southern banners on Northern soil and to give to our friends over the line taste Of war. To Morgans young and zealous followers this was incentive enough We had seen the homes of our own peo- >nie darkened by the standards of an alien army While we did not intend and did not commit any robbery of citi- zens or banks. and had no designs on nr,vate property other than horse flesh, tho young men wanted, in spirit of nardonable bravado, to unfurl our flagsSin a hostile land, and to sing to Northern ears, as we swept along their highways, the inspiring sNngs or Dixie Maryland, and the Bonnie blue rIas.
 Rut Morgan had a deeper purpose. prhe great North was aroused to the ma rnitude of it's resolve to crush the south Enlistments were being pushed in every State. Recruits were coming in from the four quarters of the habit able globe. General Bragg was at Tul- lahoma, Tenn, stern and defiant, though In & precarious condition. Gen eral Rosecrans, a trained and skillful officer confronted him with an army daily increasing in strength and swell ing in numbers Conscripts and foreign auxiliaries had increased his force to twice the effective strength of Bragg. Ruckner was at Knoxville with force wholly inadequate to the duty assign ed him of holding East Tennessee At various points In Rosecraps rear, at Nashville. Gallatin. Mumfordsville. Glasgow, and I know not how many other points, there were garrisons, ag- gregating. according to the estimates of contemporaneous history. IS 900 men which on @ days notice could be called to the front and massed against Bragg. Buckner could afford him no assist ance. for Burnside was preparing to move on Knoxville with a force of 20.- 900 men. The situation was critical.