and to explain General Morgan's ideas
regarding the movement, which were definite and fixed. This expedition
into the Northwestern States had long been a favorite idea with him and
was but the practical development of his theory of the proper way to
make war, to-wit: by going deep into the country of the enemy. He had
for several weeks foreseen the necessity of some such diversion in
General Bragg's behalf, and believed that the period for the
accomplishment of his great desire was at hand.

He had ordered me, three weeks previously, to send intelligent men to
examine the fords of the upper Ohio--that at Buffington among them--and
it is a fact, of which others, as well as myself, are cognizant, that he
intended--long before he crossed the Ohio--to make no effort to recross
it, except at some of these fords, unless he found it more expedient,
when he reached that region, to join General Lee, if the latter should
still be in Pennsylvania.

Never had I been so impressed with General Morgan's remarkable
genius--his wonderful faculty of anticipating the exact effect his
action would have upon all other men and of calculating their
action--his singular power of arriving at a correct estimate of the
nature and capacities of a country, which he knew only by maps and the
most general description--and the perfect accuracy with which he could
foretell the main incidents of a march and campaign--as when he would
briefly sketch his plan of that raid. All who heard him felt that he was
right in the main, and although some of us were filled with a grave
apprehension, from the first, we felt an inconsistent confidence when
listening to him. He did not disguise from himself the great dangers he
encountered, but was sanguine of success. As it turned out, only the
unprecedented rise in the Ohio caused his capture--he had avoided or had
cut his way through all other dangers.

On the 11th of June, the division marched from Alexandria to the
Cumberland and crossed the river not far from the little town of Rome.
General Morgan desired to attack the Federal force stationed at
Carthage, and strongly fortified. General Bragg had authorized him to do
so.

The division encamped two or three miles from the northern bank of the
river, and not far from the turnpike which runs from Carthage to
Hartsville. Information had been received that the mail passed on this
road twice or three times a week, guarded by a small escort, and that
comfortably l