ommand. He declared that if he had been successful in the last day's
fight at Cynthiana, he would have been enabled to hold Kentucky for
months; that every organized Federal force which could be promptly
collected to attack him, could have then been disposed of, and that he
had assurance of obtaining a great number of recruits. He spoke with
something of his old sanguine energy, only when proclaiming his
confidence that he could have achieved successes unparalleled in his
entire career, if fortune had favored him in that fight. But no word of
censure upon any one escaped him. It had never been his habit to charge
the blame of failure upon his subordinates--his native magnanimity
forbade it; and tried so sorely as he was at this time, by malignant
calumny, he was too proud to utter a single reproach. A letter which he
intended to forward to the Secretary of War, but the transmission of
which his death prevented, shows his sense of the treatment he had
received. This letter was written just after the conversation, above
mentioned, occurred, while he was again confronting the enemy, and
immediately before he was killed. I can not better introduce it than by
first giving the letter of the officer who forwarded it to me (I had
believed it lost), and who was for more than a year Adjutant General of
the Department of Southwestern Virginia and East Tennessee, and served
for some months on General Morgan's staff. He is well known to the
ex-Confederates of Kentucky, as having been an exceedingly intelligent,
competent, and gallant officer, and a gentleman of the highest honor.

"COVINGTON, December --, ----.

"_Dear General_: In looking over some old papers (relics of the late
war), a few days ago, I discovered one which, until then, I did not
know was in my possession. It is the last letter written by General
Morgan, and, in a measure, may be considered his dying declaration.
I can not recollect how it came into my possession, but believe it
to have been among a bundle of papers that were taken from his body
after he was killed, and forwarded to Department Headquarters; the
letter of Captain Gwynn, which I will also inclose you, leaves
hardly a doubt upon that point.

I have noticed through the press, that you were engaged in writing a
history of "Morgan's command," and under the impression that this
paper will be of service to you, I herewith forward it. I am
familiar wi