other subjects considered at this session was the plan proposed by Prosident Lincoln for the gradual emancipation of the slaves. The philanthropic plan was not accepted. The Legislature, most of whose members were personally interested in the institution which compels poor men to work for rich men without wages, had the boldness to deny that slavery was the cause of the war, and refused to consent to its abolition. This result God overruled for good. He had better plans in store for the South than gradual and lingering emancipation. Scarcely a year after this passed away, ere Missouri, Tennessee, Maryland, and Louisiana were calling aloud for the immediate abolition of slavery. It cannot be that the soil which covers the remains of Henry Clay will long be tilled by unpaid laborers.

The rapid increase of guerrilla operations at this time, especially in Eastern Kentucky, indicated some hostile movements of a more serious character. Rumors of invasion began to be repeated through the public. press, and to gain credence from those who had previously scouted the idea. It was said that John Morgan, with a large band, was approaching Frankfort, the capital of the State. About the middle of August it became known that the rebel general, E. Kirby Smith, with a well-organized force, was advancing into the State from Knoxville, Tennessee. Cumberland Gap was in possession of the National forces under General George W. Morgan.* The rebels first made an attempt to drive him from his position. They attacked his advance at Tazewell. Being repulsed, they abandoned the purpose, if indeed they had ever entertained it, of entering Kentucky through Cumberland Gap, and turning to the west, passed over a difficult mountain road, at a point known as Big Creek Gap.

As early as the 9th of August, General Morgan dispatched to Governor Johnson intelligence that it was rumored that Kentucky was about to be invaded, and that General Smith had already crossed the mountains and entered the State. Almost simultaneously came the news that General Bragg had slipped past General Buell, and was marching for the North. At the same time the entire country was watching, with the most intense anxiety, the movements of the two armies in the East. General Lee was then rushing forward, by forced marches, to attack General Pope before General McClellan, who was proverbially slow in his movements, could join him from the Peninsula.

On the 1st of July, the President, by act of Congress, had called for three hundred thousand volunteers to serve during the war. These were being rapidly recruited. On the 4th of August, the President, by proclamation, called for three hundred thousand more, to serve for nine months, to be immediately drafted. The danger was imminent, not merely to the capital at Washington, but to the entire Northern border. To withstand the well-drilled forces of Generals Smith and Bragg, marching upon Kentucky, there was no organized army-nothing but the undisciplined, unorganized forces under the President's call of July. Fortunately, the gubernatorial chairs of Ohio and Indiana were occupied by men of patriotism and energy equal to the emergency. It is impossible to speak in terms of

* For account of his discomfiture and retreat see chapter on Eastern Tennessee.

too high praise of these distinguished patriots. Governor Morton, of Indiana, merits a volume devoted to his own exploits. The whole nation felt the power of his loyal energy. The whole State seemed imbued with his spirit. Wherever was the thickest fight, there the soldiers of Indiana were found in the advance. Without detracting in the slightest degree from the merits and the achievements of the loyal Governors of other States, who rendered the nation priceless services, History would be faithless to her trust were not distinguished honor rendered to Governor Morton, of Indiana.. He, like Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, and Governor Buckingham, of Connecticut, was formed upon the highest model of earthly nobility. And they were all faithful to the mission with which God had intrusted them.

General Lew. Wallace, one of our most unconditionally loyal and heroic men, had been relieved from duty on the field. It would be as difficult to assign any reason for this act of the War Department, as for that which had allowed at different times Generals Fremont, Mitchel, and Butler to lie idle. Unwilling to be doing nothing in this great crisis of our National history, General Wallace was earnestly engaged in holding war meetings in Indiana, for the purpose of stimulating volunteering, when the news of Kirby Smith's invasion reached his ears. With characteristic nobility, he immediately volunteered to take command, as colonel, of any of the unofficered regiments then forming in the State. His offer was accepted. In less than twenty-four hours he was in Louisville, reporting to General Boyle for service. General Boyle was not a little embarrassed. Though in command of the forces in Kentucky, he ranked as brigadier-general. Wallace was major-general. For a brigadier-general to be issuing orders. to a major-general was without precedent in the army. The circumstances were also without precedent, and fortunately General Wallace cared less about military etiquette, than about his country.

General Boyle dispatched him to Lexington, and gave him command of all the forces which were gathered there. They were raw troops, many of whom had never even fired a gun. In many instances the officers were as inexperienced as the men. General Wallace at once proceeded to organize these forces. He drew into his service, either as captains of home guards, or upon his staff, some of the most prominent men of Kentucky, such as John J. Crittenden, Leslie Coombs, and Garrett Davis. The magic of these names caused volunteers by hundreds to flock to his campkeen-eyed and strong-limbed Kentucky riflemen. He telegraphed to Ohio and Indiana for additional troops, assembled a corps of several hundred negroes, armed with spades and picks, and perfected his plan of defence. To attempt to oppose the veterans of Kirby Smith in the open field was no part of his design. Neither would he exhaust the energies of his soldiers, or occupy their time, so important for drill, by employing them in the labor of intrenching. Rising above the wretched prejudices of the times, which would allow horses and mules, but not colored men, to serve the National cause, he organized an efficient corps of men, in whose veins. flowed commingled Caucasian and Ethiopian blood, to accompany his soldiers and relieve them of the toil of throwing up breastworks. Posterity

will be slow to believe that, in the nineteenth century, prejudice could be so inveterate and crazy, that it required great moral courage to employ colored men even to dig ditches for the army. No one, as yet, ventured to place a musket in the hands of men who subsequently proved themselves to be quite equal to their whiter brothers in all soldierly and heroic qualities. Behind the breastworks which these dark-faced allies threw up, our bold but inexperienced white soldiers were invincible.

We blush to write that General Wallace was not permitted to carry out his eminently sagacious and effective plans. Either his employment of colored men offended the sensitiveness of some in power, or, as is charitably to be hoped, some important changes in the organization of the military department caused his removal. For, in the midst of these exciting scenes, the States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Eastern Kentucky were constituted a military district, intitled the Department of the Ohio, which was assigned to the command of General H. G. Wright. The command of the Army of Kentucky was intrusted to Major-General Nelson. Thus, just as the collision of the two armies was at hand, and while, indeed, General Wallace was writing his last order, preparatory to taking the field, he was superseded by General Nelson. With unswerving patriotism, which merits record, he offered to serve under. General Nelson in any capacity. His offer was declined, and General Lew. Wallace, with patriotic submission, returned, out of employment, to Cincinnati. His plan of fighting behind breastworks was abandoned. His corps of dark-complexioned laborers were contemptuously sent away. The inexperienced recruits were drawn out in the open field to withstand the veterans of Kirby Smith, while their chosen commander, at whose call they had so enthusiastically rallied, was compulsively folding his hands, miles away from the scene of conflict. The result was the disastrous battle of Richmond.

Richmond is a small village south of the Kentucky River, and southeast of Frankfort. In the vicinity were two brigades of experienced troops, under Brigadier-Generals M. D. Manson and Charles Cruft, in all about six thousand five hundred men. It was known that the enemy were in considerable force in front, but their numbers could not be accurately ascertained. On the 29th of August, information was brought to General Manson that the enemy were advancing in force. As his camp was commanded by a range of hills on the south, he determined not to allow the enemy to occupy them without a struggle. His brigade was accordingly pressed forward, and formed in line of battle; he met the advance of the enemy, who were endeavoring to occupy the hills, and drove them back in disorder. By this movement, however, he placed four miles between himself and the second brigade, under General Cruft.

The next morning he was attacked by the entire force of the rebels, under Kirby Smith. General Cruft, informed of the engagement by the roar of the guns, moved up to his support without awaiting orders. He found the battle already raging, and formed his raw troops in line, under heavy fire, a difficult and perilous feat to perform even with veterans. The National troops fought bravely against a foe nearly double their own

numbers. They had no advantages in position; they could easily be outflanked. The inexperienced troops, with subordinate officers as little accustomed to war as themselves, though they fought heroically, could not be manœuvred in the midst of the battle so as to meet the new dispositions of the foe. For nearly twenty-four hours they maintained their ground in as brave fight as the war has witnessed.

At length the attempt to change the positions of some of the troops threw them into confusion. The eagle-eyed enemy improved the occasion, and, in a fierce attack upon the left wing, drove it back in disorder. This was followed by the retreat of the whole army, panic-stricken and routed. General Cruft formed his reserves about a mile in the rear, and succeeded in checking the flight, and restoring some degree of order. Here a new line was formed, and a second stand was made. Again the rebels, exultant and with loud cheers, came rushing upon the left flank. An immediate change of front was necessary; in the attempt to effect it, the patriot troops were again thrown into confusion, and, panic-stricken, fled again from the field. Generals Manson and Cruft rode forward and made a third attempt to rally their flying troops, and form a new line of defence at Richmond. Just at this juncture General Nelson came upon the scene. Under the combined efforts of the three officers the third line was formed; but it was impossible to hold together any longer the remnants of this twice defeated army.

As the rebels, with their accustomed impetuosity, advanced to the charge, the line again broke, the rout became general, and the officers were swept away upon the tumultuous flood of their panic-stricken men; each man saved himself as best he could; the rebel cavalry succeeded in gaining the rear of the fugitive army; nearly half of the patriot army were taken captives; they were, however, immediately paroled, as the rebels had scarcely food sufficient to supply the wants of their own men. General Nelson escaped, borne from the field with a severe wound in the thigh.* General Cruft collected the scattered remnants of the discomfited troops at Lexington, and thence marched to Louisville.

*General Nelson repaired to Louisville, where, on the 29th of September, he was shot by Brigadier-General Jefferson C. Davis, at the Galt House, in a moment of exasperation produced by grossly insulting language addressed by General Nelson to General Davis, his subordinate officer. He died of the wound in the course of a few hours, in anguish both of body and of mind. The sympathies of the community were strongly with the avenger, and not with his victim. General Nelson, as a soldier, was brave; as an officer, he was considerate of the wants of his soldiers; but as a man he was hot-tempered, unrefined, and overbearing. He had many enemies, and few friends.

CHAPTER XV.

ADVANCE AND RETREAT OF THE REBELS.

September 2d to October 8th, 1862.

CAPTURE OF LEXINGTON AND FRANKFORT.-HEROISM OF LEW. WALLACE. PERIL OF CINCINNATI.-MANŒUVRES OF BRAGG AND BUELL.-MURDER OF GENERAL MCCOOK.-HEROISM OF COLONEL WILDER AT MUMFORDSVILLE.-RAVAGES OF BRAGG.—INEFFICIENCY OF BUELL. -BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE.-RETREAT OF THE REBELS.-DISSATISFACTION WITH BUELL. THE TWO PARTIES.

THE effect of the disaster at Richmond was to leave an unobstructed road for the advance of the rebel army. On the 2d of September the rebel general, Kirby Smith, with his exultant troops, entered Lexington, one of the most important towns in the heart of Kentucky. On the 6th he took possession of Frankfort, the capital of the State, but a few miles distant. The public records and other property had, however, been previously removed. The most intense excitement pervaded all the towns upon the Ohio River, upon both banks.

General Smith was about equally distant from Louisville and Cincinnati. He could, with equal facility, move upon the one city or the other, and either would afford him limitless plunder. Vigorous preparations were made for the defence of both of these threatened cities. Governor Robinson, of Kentucky, issued a proclamation calling upon the citizens to rise en masse and drive out the invaders. The Governors of Ohio and Indiana called upon the people of those States to rally to protect their borders from rebel invasion. The appeal was promptly answered, and from every farm-house and work-shop came the thronging patriots to protect their homes.

Meanwhile, General Lew. Wallace was once more assigned to active duty. He was ordered to take charge of the city of Cincinnati and its suburbs, to repel the menacing foe. The patriot troops were, for the most part, concentrated at Louisville, where there was a large quantity of Government stores. It was necessary that what remained of the army should be united, for the protection of those magazines. Ohio was, necessarily, left to defend her own border. General Wallace was solely dependent, for the protection of Cincinnati, upon the coöperation of the citizens, and upon the volunteer soldiery. The imminence of the danger may be inferred from the following extracts from the proclamation which he issued:

"It is but fair to inform the citizens that an active, daring, and powerful enemy threatens them with every consequence of war. All business must be suspended at nine o'clock to-day. Every business house must be