He had another faculty which is very essential to military success, indispensably necessary, at any rate, to a cavalry commander who acts independently and at such distances from any base or support as he almost constantly did. I believe the English term it, having "a good eye for a country." It is the faculty of rapidly acquiring a correct idea of the nature and peculiar features of any country in which military operations are to be conducted. He neglected nothing that a close study of maps and careful inquiry could furnish of this sort of knowledge, but after a brief investigation or experience, he generally had a better understanding of the subject than either map-makers or natives could give him.
However imperfect might be his acquaintance with a country, it was nearly impossible for a guide to deceive him. What he had once learned in this respect he never forgot. A road once traveled was always afterward familiar to him, with distances, localities and the adjacent country. Thus, always having in his mind a perfect idea of the region where he principally operated, he could move with as much facility and confidence (when there) without maps and guides as with them. His favorite strategy, in his important expeditions or "raids," was to place himself by long and swift marches – moving sometimes for days and nights without a halt except to feed the horses – in the very heart of the territory where were the objects of his enterprise. He relied upon this method to confuse if not to surprise his enemy, and prevent a concentration of his forces. He would then strike right and left. He rarely declined upon such expeditions to fight when advancing, for it was his theory that then, a concentration of superior forces against him was more difficult, and that the vigor of his enemy was to a certain extent paralyzed by the celerity of his own movements and the mystery which involved them. But after commencing his retreat, he would use every effort and stratagem to avoid battle, fearing that while fighting one enemy others might also overtake him, and believing that at such times the morale of his own troops was somewhat impaired. No leader could make more skillful use of detachments. He would throw them out to great distances, even when surrounded by superior and active forces, and yet in no instance was one of them (commanded by a competent officer and who obeyed instructions) overwhelmed or cut off. It very rarely happened that they failed to accomplish the purposes for which they were dispatched, or to rejoin the main body in time to assist in decisive action. He could widely separate and apparently scatter his forces, and yet maintain such a disposition of them as to have all well in hand. When pushing into the enemy's lines he would send these detachments in every direction, until it was impossible to conjecture his real intentions – causing, generally, the shifting of troops from point to point as each was threatened; until the one he wished to attack was weakened, when he would strike at it like lightning.
He was a better strategist than tactician. He excelled in the arts which enable a commander to make successful campaigns and gain advantages without much fighting, rather than in skillful maneuvering on the field.
He knew how to thoroughly confuse and deceive an enemy, and induce in him (as he desired) false confidence or undue caution; how to isolate and persuade or compel him to surrender without giving battle; and he could usually manage, although inferior to the aggregate of the hostile forces around him, to be stronger or as strong at the point and moment of encounter.
The tactics he preferred, when he chose to fight, were attempts at surprise and a concentration of his strength for headlong dashing attacks.
To this latter method there were some objections. These attacks were made with a vigor, and inspired in the men a reckless enthusiasm, which generally rendered them successful. But if the enemy was too strong, or holding defensible positions, was resolute and stubborn in resistance, and the first two or three rushes failed to drive him, the attack was apt to fail altogether, and the reaction was correspondent to the energy of the onset.
He did not display so much ability when operating immediately with the army, as when upon detached service. He would not hesitate to remain for days closely confronting the main forces of the enemy, keeping his videttes constantly in sight of his cantonments, observing his every movement, and attacking every detachment and foraging party which he 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 those who approached him, and he could subsidize the knowledge and talents of other men with rare skill. He especially excelled in judging men collectively. He knew exactly how to appeal to the feelings of his men, to excite their enthusiasm, and stimulate them to dare any danger and endure any fatigue and hardship. But he sometimes committed the gravest errors in his estimation of individual character. He more than once imposed implicit confidence in men whom no one else would have trusted, and suffered himself to be deceived by the shallowest imposters. He obtained credit for profound insight into character by his possession of another and very different quality. The unbounded influence he at once acquired over almost every one who approached him, enabled him to make men do the most uncharacteristic things, and created the impression that he discovered traits of character hidden from others.
General Morgan had more of those personal qualities which make a man's friends devoted to him, than any one I have ever known.
He was himself very warm and constant in the friendships which he formed. It seemed impossible for him to do enough for those to whom he was attached, or to ever give them up. His manner when he wished, prepossessed every one in his favor. He was generally more courteous and attentive to his inferiors than to his equals and superiors. This may have proceeded in a great measure from his jealousy of dictation and impatience of restraint, but was the result also of warm and generous feelings. His greatest faults, arose out of his kindness and easiness of disposition, which rendered it impossible for him to say or do unpleasant things, unless when under the influence of strong prejudice or resentment. This temperament made him a too lax disciplinarian, and caused him to be frequently imposed upon. He was exceedingly and unfeignedly modest. For a long time he sought, in every way, to avoid the applause and ovations which met him every where in the South, and he never learned to keep a bold countenance when receiving them.
It was distressing to see him called on (as was of course often the case) for a speech – nature certainly never intended that he should win either fame or bread by oratory.
When complimented for any achievement he always gave the credit of it to some favorite officer, or attributed it to the excellence of his troops. Nothing seemed to give him more sincere pleasure than to publicly acknowledge meritorious service in a subaltern officer or private, and he would do it in a manner that made it a life long remembrance with the recipient of the compliment.
When displeased, he rarely reprimanded, but expressed his displeasure by satirically complimenting the offender; frequently the only evidence of dissatisfaction which he would show was a peculiar smile, which was exceeding significant, and any thing but agreeable to the individual conscious of having offended him.
His personal appearance and carriage were striking and graceful. His features were eminently handsome and adapted to the most pleasing expressions. His eyes were small, of a grayish blue color, and their glances keen and thoughtful. His figure on foot or on horseback was superb.
He was exactly six feet in hight, and although not at all corpulent, weighed one hundred and eighty-five pounds.
His form was perfect and the rarest combination of strength, activity and grace. His constitution seemed impervious to the effects of privation and exposure, and it was scarcely possible to perceive that he suffered from fatigue or lack of sleep. After marching for days and nights without intermission, until the hardiest men in his division were exhausted, I have known him, as soon as a halt was called, and he could safely leave his command, ride fifty miles to see his wife. Although a most practical man in all of his ideas, he irresistibly reminded one of the heroes of romance. He seemed the Fra-Moreale come to life again, and, doubtless, was as much feared and as bitterly denounced as was that distinguished officer.
Men are not often born who can wield such an influence as he exerted, apparently without an effort – who can so win men's hearts and stir their blood. He will, at least, be remembered until the Western cavalrymen and their children have all died. The bold riders who live in the border-land, whose every acre he made historic, will leave many a story of his audacity and wily skill. They will name but one man as his equal, "The wizard of the saddle," the man of revolutionary force and fire, strong, sagacious, indomitable Forrest, and the two will go down in tradition together, twin-brothers in arms and in fame.
CHAPTER III
The position assumed by Kentucky, at the inception of the late struggle, and her conduct throughout, excited the surprise, and, in no small degree, incurred for her the dislike of both the contending sections.
But while both North and South, at some time, doubted her good faith and complained of her action, all such sentiments have been entirely forgotten by the latter, and have become intensified into bitter and undisguised animosity upon the part of a large share of the population of the former.
The reason is patent. It is the same which, during the war, influenced the Confederates to hope confidently for large assistance from Kentucky, if once enabled to obtain a foothold upon her territory, and caused the Federals, on the other hand, to regard even the loudest and most zealous professors of loyalty as Secessionists in disguise, or, at best, Unionists only to save their property. It is the instinctive feeling that the people of Kentucky, on account of kindred blood, common interests, and identity of ideas in all that relates to political rights and the objects of political institutions, may be supposed likely to sympathize and to act with the people of the South. But a variety of causes and influences combined to prevent Kentucky from taking a decided stand with either of the combatants, and produced the vacillation and inconsistency which so notably characterized her councils and paralyzed her efforts in either direction, and, alas, it may be added, so seriously affected her fair fame.
Her geographical situation, presenting a frontier accessible for several hundreds of miles to an assailant coming either from the North or South, caused her people great apprehension, especially as it was accounted an absolute certainty that her territory (if she took part with the South) would be made the battle-ground and subjected to the last horrors and desolation of war. The political education of the Kentuckians, also, disposed them to enter upon such a contest with extreme reluctance and hesitation.
Originally a portion of Virginia, settled chiefly by emigration from that State, her population partook of the characteristics and were imbued with the feelings which so strongly prevailed in the mother commonwealth.
From Virginia, the first generation of Kentucky statesmen derived those opinions which became the political creed of the Southern people, and were promulgated in the celebrated resolutions of '98, which gave shape and consistency to the doctrine of States' Rights, and popular expression to that construction of the relations of the several States to the General Government (under the Federal Constitution), so earnestly insisted upon by the master-minds of Virginia. The earlier population of Kentucky was peculiarly inclined to adopt and cherish such opinions, by the promptings of that nature which seems common to all men descended from the stock of the "Old Dominion," that craving for the largest individual independence, and disposition to assert and maintain in full measure every personal right, which has always made the people of the Southern and Western States so jealous of outside interference with their local affairs. It was natural that a people, animated by such a spirit, should push their preference for self-government even to extremes; that they should esteem their most valued franchises only safe when under their own entire custody and control; that they should prefer that their peculiar institutions should be submitted only to domestic regulation, and that the personal liberty, which they prized above all their possessions, should be restrained only by laws enacted by legislators chosen from among themselves, and executed by magistrates equally identified with themselves and appreciative of their instincts.
In short, they were strongly attached to their State Governments, and were not inclined to regard as beneficent, nor, even exactly legitimate, any interference with them, upon the part of the General Government, and desired to see the powers of the latter exercised only for the "common defense and general welfare."
Without presuming to declare them correct or erroneous, it may be safely asserted that such were the views which prevailed in Kentucky at a period a little subsequent to her settlement.
This decided and almost universal sentiment was first shaken, and the minds of the people began to undergo some change, about the time of, and doubtless in consequence of, the detection of the Burr conspiracy. Burr had been identified with the party which advocated the extreme State Rights doctrines, and his principal confederates were men of the same political complexion.
The utter uselessness of his scheme, even if successful, and the little prospect of any benefit accruing from it, unless to the leading adventurers, had disposed all the more sober minded to regard it with distrust. And when it became apparent that it had been concocted for the gratification of one man's ambition, the very people whom it had been part of the plan to flatter with hopes of the most brilliant advantages, immediately conceived for it the most intense aversion.
The odium into which Burr and his associates immediately fell, became, in some measure, attached to the political school to which they had belonged, and men's minds began to be unsettled upon the very political tenets, in the propriety and validity of which they had previously so implicitly believed. The able Federalist leaders in the State, pursued and improved the advantage thus offered them, and for the first time in the history of Kentucky, that party showed evidence of ability to cope with its rival. Doubtless, also, the effect of Mr. Madison's attempt to explain away the marrow and substance of the famous resolutions, which told so injuriously against the State Rights party every where, contributed, at a still later day, to weaken that party in Kentucky; but the vital change in the political faith of Kentucky, was wrought by Henry Clay. All previous interruptions to the opinions which she had acquired as her birthright from Virginia, were but partial, and would have been ephemeral, but the spell which the great magician cast over his people was like the glamour of mediæval enchantment. It bound them in helpless but delighted acquiescence in the will of the master. Their vision informed them, not of objects as they were, but as he willed that they should seem, and his patients received, at his pleasure and with equal confidence, the true or the unreal. In fact, the undoubted patriotism and spotless integrity of Mr. Clay, so aided the effect of his haughty will and superb genius, that his influence amounted to fascination. Although himself, in early life, an advocate of the principles of (what has been since styled) the Jeffersonian school of Democracy, he became gradually, but thoroughly, weaned from his first opinions, and a convert to the dogmas of the school of politics which he had once so ably combatted. The author of the American System, the advocate of the United States Bank, the champion of the New England manufacturing and commercial interests, with their appropriate and necessary train of protective tariffs, bounties and monopolies, could have little sympathy with the ideas that the several States could, and should, protect and develope their own interests without Federal assistance, that the General Government was the servant of all the States and not the guardian and dry nurse of a few – the doctrine, in short, of "State Sovereignty and Federal Agency." Mr. Clay fairly and emphatically announced his political faith in word and deed. He declared that he "owed a paramount allegiance to the whole Union: a subordinate one to his own State," and, throughout the best part of his long political life, he wrought faithfully for interests distinct from, if not adverse to, those of his own State and section. His influence, however, in his own State, has determined, perhaps forever, her destiny. If he did not educate the people of Kentucky (as has been so often charged) to "defer principle to expediency," he at least taught them to study the immediate policy rather than the ultimate effect of every measure that they were called to consider, and to seek the material prosperity of the hour at the expense, even, of future safety. He taught his generation to love the Union, not as an "agency" through which certain benefits were to be derived, but as an "end" which was to be adhered to, no matter what results flowed from it.
Mr. Clay sincerely believed that in the union of the States resided the surest guarantees of the safety, honor, and prosperity of each, and he contemplated with horror and aversion any thought of disunion. His own lofty and heroic nature could harbor no feeling which was not manly and brave, but, in striving to stimulate and fortify in his people the same love of union which he entertained himself, he taught many Kentuckians to so dread the evils of war, as to lose all fear of other and as great evils, and to be willing to purchase exemption from civil strife by facile and voluntary submission. After the death of Mr. Clay, Kentucky, no longer subjected to his personal influence, began to forget it.
In 1851, John C. Breckinridge had been elected to Congress from Mr. Clay's district, while the latter still lived, and beating one of his warmest friends and supporters. Under the leadership of Mr. Breckinridge, the Democratic party in Kentucky rallied and rapidly gained ground. During the "Know-nothing" excitement, the old Whigs, who had nearly all joined the Know-nothing or American party, seemed about to regain their ascendency, but that excitement ebbing as suddenly as it had arisen, left the Democracy in indisputable power. In 1856, Kentucky cast her Presidential vote for Buchanan and Breckinridge by nearly seven thousand majority. Mr. Breckinridge's influence had, by this time, become predominant in the State, and was felt in every election. The troubles in Kansas and the agitation in Congress had rendered the Democratic element in Kentucky more determined, and inclined them more strongly to take a Southern view of all the debated questions. The John Brown affair exasperated her people in common with that of every other slaveholding community, and led to the organization of the State-guard.
Created because of the strong belief that similar attempts would be repeated, and upon a larger scale, and that, quite likely, Kentucky would be selected as a field of operations, it is not surprising that the State-guard should have expected an enemy only from the North, whence, alone, would come the aggressions it was organized to resist, and that it should have conceived a feeling of antagonism for the Northern, and an instinctive sympathy for the Southern, people.
These sentiments were intensified by the language of the Northern press and pulpit, and the commendation and encouragement of such enterprises as the Harper's Ferry raid, which were to be heard throughout the North.
In the Presidential election of 1860, the Kentucky Democracy divided on Douglas and Breckinridge, thereby losing the State. After the election of Mr. Lincoln and the passage of ordinances of secession by several Southern States, when the most important question which the people of Kentucky had ever been required to determine, was presented for their consideration, their sentiments and wishes were so various and conflicting, as to render its decision by themselves impossible, and it was finally settled for them by the Federal Government.
The Breckinridge wing of the Democracy was decidedly Southern in feelings and opinions, and anxious to espouse the Southern cause.
The Douglas wing strongly sympathized with the South, but opposed secession and disunion.
The Bell-Everett party, composed chiefly of old Clay Whigs, was decidedly in favor of Union. Such was the attitude of parties, with occasional individual exceptions. The very young men of the State were generally intense Southern sympathizers, and were, with few exceptions, connected with the State-guard. Indeed, divided as were the people of Kentucky at that time, sympathy with the Southern people was prevalent among all classes of them, and the conviction seemed to be strong, even in the most determined opponents of secession, that an attack upon the Southern people was an attack upon themselves. Among the Union men it was common to hear such declarations as that "When it becomes a direct conflict between North and South, we will take part with the South," "The Northern troops shall not march over our soil to invade the South," "When it becomes apparent that the war is an abolition crusade, and waged for the destruction of slavery, Kentucky will arm against the Government," etc.; each man had some saving clause with his Unionism. It is no hazardous assertion that the Union party, in Kentucky, condemned the secession of the Southern States, more because it was undertaken without consultation with them, and because they regarded it as a blow at Kentucky's dignity and comfort, than because it endangered "the national life." Certainly not one of the leading politicians of that party would have dared, in the winter and spring of 1861, to have openly advocated coercion, no matter what were his secret views of its propriety.
Upon the 17th February, 1861, the Legislature met in extra session at the summons of Governor Magoffin. Seven Southern States had seceded, the Confederate Government had been inaugurated, and it was time for the people of Kentucky to understand what they were going to do. The Governor addressed a message to the Legislature advising the call of a State Convention. This the Legislature declined to do, but suggested the propriety of the assembling of a National Convention to revise and correct the Federal Constitution, and recommended the "Peace Conference," which was subsequently held at Washington. In certain resolutions passed by this Legislature, in reference to resolutions passed by the States of Maine, New York and Massachusetts, this language occurs: "The Governor of the State of Kentucky is hereby requested to inform the executives of said States, that it is the opinion of this General Assembly that whenever the authorities of these States shall send armed forces to the South for the purpose indicated in said resolutions, the people of Kentucky, uniting with their brethren of the South, will as one man, resist such invasion of the soil of the South, at all hazards and to the last extremity." Rather strong language for "Union" men and a "loyal" legislature to use. It would seem that Kentucky, at that time, supposed herself a "sovereign" State addressing other "sovereign" States, and that she entirely ignored the "Nation." Her Legislature paid as little attention to the "proper channel of communication" as a militia Captain would have done. The Union men who voted for the resolutions in which this language was embodied, would be justly liable to censure, if it were not positively certain that they were insincere; and that they were insincere is abundantly proven by their subsequent action, and the fact that many of them held commissions in the "armed forces" sent to invade the South. On the 11th of February the Legislature resolved, "That we protest against the use of force or coercion by the General Government against the seceded States, as unwise and inexpedient, and tending to the destruction of our common country."
At the Union State Convention, held at Louisville on the 8th of January, certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States were "recommended," and it was resolved, "that, if the disorganization of the present Union is not arrested, that the States agreeing to these amendments of the Federal Constitution shall form a separate Confederacy, with power to admit new States under our glorious Constitution thus amended;" it was resolved also that it was "expedient to call a convention of the border free and slave States," and that "we deplore the existence of a Union to be held together by the sword."
It almost takes a man's breath away to write such things about the most loyal men of the loyal State of Kentucky. For a Union Convention to have passed them, and Union men to have indorsed them, the resolutions whose substance has been just given, have rather a strange sound. They ring mightily like secession.
"If the disorganization of the present Union is not arrested," the Union men of Kentucky would also help it along. A modified phrase much in vogue with them, "separate State action" expressed their "conservative" plan of seceding. Unless the proper distinctions are drawn, however, the action of this class of politicians will always be misunderstood. They indignantly condemned the secession of South Carolina and Georgia. No language was strong enough to express their abhorrence and condemnation of the wickedness of those who would inaugurate "the disorganization of the present Union." But they did not, with ordinary consistency,
"Compound for sins they were inclined toBy damning those they had no mind to!"
They committed the same sin under another name, and advocated the "separate Confederacy" of "the border free and slave States," under our glorious Constitution thus amended.
"Orthodoxy," was their "doxy;" "Heterodoxy," was "another man's doxy." Every candid man, who remembers the political status of Kentucky at that period, will admit that the Union party propounded no definite and positive creed, and that its leaders frequently gave formal expression to views which strangely resembled the "damnable heresies of secession." Indeed, the neglect of the seceding States to "consult Kentucky," previously to having gone out, seemed to be, in the eyes of these gentlemen, not so much an aggravation of the crime of secession, as, in itself, a crime infinitely graver. There were many who would condemn secession, and in the same breath indicate the propriety of "co-operation." These subtle distinctions, satisfactory, doubtless, to the intellects which generated them, were not aptly received by common minds, and their promulgation induced, perhaps very unjustly, a very general belief that the Union party was actuated not more by a love of the Union, than by a salutary regard for personal security and comfort. It seemed that the crime was not in "breaking up the Union," but in going about it in the wrong way.