obtained recruits from every
county, numbers running every risk to join him, when no other leader
could enlist a man. The whole State was represented in his command. Many
Kentuckians who had enlisted in regiments from other States procured
transfers to his command, and it frequently happened that men, the bulk
of whose regiments were in prison, or who had become irregularly
detached from them by some of the many accidents by which the volunteer,
weary of monotony, is prompt to take advantage, would attach themselves
to and serve temporarily with it. Probably every native citizen of
Kentucky who will read these lines, will think of some relative or
friend who at some time served with Morgan. Men of even the strictest
"Union principles," whose loyalty has always been unimpeachable, and
whose integrity (as disinterested and as well assured as their
patriotism) forbids all suspicion that they were inclined to serve two
masters, have had to furnish aid in this way to the rebellion.
Frequently after these gentlemen had placed in the Federal army
substitutes, white or black, for loyal sons of unmilitary temperaments,
other sons, rebellious, and more enterprising, would elect to represent
the family in some one of Morgan's regiments. It is not unlikely, then,
that a record of these men, written by one who has had every opportunity
of learning the true story of every important and interesting event
which he did not witness, may be favorably received by the people of
Kentucky. The class of readers who will be gratified by an account of
such adventures as will be herein related, will readily forgive any lack
of embellishment. My practical countrymen prefer the recital of
substantial facts, and the description of scenes which their own
experience enables them to appreciate, to all the fictions of which the
Northern war literature has been so prolific.

The popular taste in Kentucky and the South does not require the
fabulous and romantic; less educated and more primitive than that of the
North, it rejects even the beautiful, if also incredible, and is more
readily satisfied with plain statements, supported by evidence, or
intrinsically probable, than with the most fascinating legend, although
illustrated with sketches by special artists.

There rests, too, upon some one identified with this command, the
obligation of denying and disproving the frequent and grave charges of
crime and outrage which have been preferred against Genera