could expect to defeat. But when a grand advance of the enemy was
commenced he preferred making a timely and long retreat, followed by a
dash in some quarter where he was not expected, rather than to
stubbornly contest their progress.

He could actively and efficiently harass a retreating army, multiplying
and continuing his assaults until he seemed ubiquitous; but he was not
equally efficient in covering a retreat or retarding an advance in
force. Upon one or two occasions, when the emergency was imminent, he
performed this sort of service cheerfully and well, but he did not like
it, nor was he eminently fitted for it. He had little of that peculiar
skill with which Forrest would so wonderfully embarrass an enemy's
advance, and contesting every inch of his march, and pressing upon him
if he hesitated or receded, convert every mistake that he made into a
disaster.

In attempting a delineation of General Morgan's character, mention ought
not to be omitted of certain peculiarities, which to some extent,
affected his military and official conduct.

Although by no means a capricious or inconsistent man, for he
entertained profound convictions and adhered to opinions with a tenacity
that often amounted to prejudice, he frequently acted very much like
one.

Not even those who knew him best could calculate how unusual occurrences
would affect him, or induce him to act.

It frequently happened that men for whose understandings and characters
he had little respect, but who were much about his person, obtained a
certain sort of influence with him, but they could keep it only by a
complete acquiescence in his will when it became aroused. He sometimes
permitted and even encouraged suggestions from all around him, listening
to the most contradictory opinions with an air of thorough acquiescence
in all. It was impossible, on such occasions, to determine whether this
was done to flatter the speakers, to mislead as to his real intentions,
or if he was in fact undecided.

He generally ended such moments of doubt by his most original and
unexpected resolutions, which he would declare exactly as if they were
suggestions just made by some one else, almost persuading the parties to
whom they were attributed that they had really advanced them. In his
judgment of the men with whom he had to deal, he showed a strange
mixture of shrewdness and simplicity. He seldom failed to discern and to
take advantage of the ruling characteristics of