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TIMIDITY OF KENTUCKY UNIONISTS.

171

tance that we give loyal direction to the sentiment of our people."

At the next interview, the President showed him this indorsement on the back of one of his papers:

"When Judge Pirtle, James Gu rie, George D. Prentice, Harney, the Speeds, and the Ballards shall think it proper to raise troops for the United States service in Kentucky, Lovell H. Rousseau is authorized to do so."

"How will that do, Rousseau ?"

"Those are good men, Mr. President, loyal men; but perhaps some of the rest of us, who were born and reared in Kentucky, are just as good Union men as they are, and know just as much about the State. If you want troops, I can raise them, and I will raise them. If you do not want them, or do not want to give me the authority, why that ends the matter."

Finally, through the assistance of Mr. Chase, who steadfastly favored the project, and of Secretary Cameron, the authority was given.

A few Kentucky Loyalists were firm and outspoken. But General Leslie Coombs was a good specimen of the whole. When asked for a letter to Mr. Lincoln, he wrote: "Rousseau is loyal and brave, but a little too much for coercion for these parts."

After Rousseau returned, with permission to raise twenty companies, The Louisville Courier, whose veneer of loyalty was very thin, denounced the effort bitterly. Even The Louisville Journal derided it until half a regiment was in camp.

A meeting of leading Loyalists of the State was held in Louisville, at the office of James Speed, since Attorney General of the United States. Garrett Davis, Bramlette, Boyle, and most of the Louisville men,

172

LOYALTY OF JUDGE LUSK.

[1861.

were against the project. They feared it would give the State to the Secessionists at the approaching election. Speed and the Ballards were for it. So was Samuel Lusk, an old judge from Garrard County, who sat quietly as long as he could during the discussion, then jumped up, and bringing his hand heavily down on the table, exclaimed:

"Can't have two regiments for the old flag! Bysir, he shall have thirty!"

!

A resolution was finally adopted that, when the time came, they all wished Rousseau to raise and command the troops, but that, for the present, it would be impolitic and improper to commence enlisting in Kentucky.

Greatly against his own will, and declaring that he never was so humiliated in his life, Rousseau established his camp on the Indiana shore. After the election, some Secession sympathizers, learning that he proposed to bring his men over to Louisville, protested very earnestly, begging him to desist, and thus avoid bloodshed, which they declared certain.

"Gentlemen," said he, "my men, like yourselves, are Kentuckians. I am a Kentuckian. Our homes are on Kentucky soil. We have organized in defense of our common country; and bloodshed is just the business we are drilling for. If anybody in the city of Louisville thinks it judicious to begin it when we arrive, I tell you, before God, you shall all have enough of it before you get through!"

The next day he marched his brigade unmolested through the city. Afterward, upon many battle-fields, its honorable fame and Rousseau's two stars were fairly won and worthily worn.

I SPENT the last days of July, in Western Virginia, with the command of General J. D. Cox, which was pursuing Henry A. Wise in hot haste up the valley of the Kanawha. There had been a few little skirmishes, which, in those early days, we were wont to call battles.

Like all mountain regions, the Kanawha valley was extremely loyal. Flags were flying, and the people manifested intense delight at the approach of our army. We were very close upon the flying enemy; indeed, more than once our cavalry boys ate hot breakfasts which the Rebels had cooked for themselves.

At a farm-house, two miles west of Charleston, a dozen natives were sitting upon the door-step as our column passed. The farmer shook hands with us very cordially. "I am glad to see.the Federal army," said he; "I have been hunted like a dog, and compelled to hide in the mountains, because I loved the Union." His wife exclaimed, "Thank God, you have come at last, and the day of our deliverance is here. I always said that the Lord was on our side, and that he would bring us through safely."

Two of the women were ardent Rebels. They did not blame the native-born Yankees, but wished that every southerner in our ranks might be killed. Just then one of our soldiers, whose home was in that county, passed by the door-step, on his way to the well

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A BLOODTHIRSTY FEMALE SECESSIONIST.

[1861.

for a canteen of water. One of the women said to me, with eyes that meant it:

"I hope he will be killed! If I had a pistol I would shoot him. Why! you have a revolver right here in your belt, haven't you? If I seen it before, I would have used it upon him!"

Suggesting that I might have interfered with such an attempt, I asked:

"Do you think you could hit him?"

"O, yes! I have been practicing lately for just such a purpose."

Her companion assured me that she prayed every night and morning for Jefferson Davis. If his armies were driven out of Virginia, she would go and live in one of the Gulf States. She had a brother and a lover in General Wise's army, and gave us their names, with a very earnest request to see them kindly treated, should they be taken prisoners. When we parted, she shook my hand, with: "Well, I hope no harm will befall you, if you are an Abolitionist!"

An old citizen, who had been imprisoned for Union sentiments, was overcome with joy at the sight of our troops. He mounted a great rock by the roadside, and extemporized a speech, in which thanks to the Union army and the Lord curiously intermingled.

Women, with tears in their eyes, told us how anxiously they had waited for the flag; how their houses had been robbed, their husbands hunted, imprisoned, and impressed. Negroes joined extravagantly in the huzzaing, swinging flags as a woodman swings his ax, bending themselves almost double with shouts of laughter, and exclamations of "Hurrah for Mass'r Lincoln !"

Thirteen miles above Charleston, at the head of navi

1861.]

A WOMAN IN DISGUISE.

175

gation, we left behind what we grandiloquently called "the fleet." It consisted of exactly four little sternwheel steamboats.

The people of these mountain regions use the old currency of New England, and talk of "fourpence ha'pennies" and "ninepences."

Our road continued along the river-bank, where the ranges of overhanging hills began to break into regular, densely timbered, pyramidal spurs. The weather was very sultry. How the sun smote us in that close, narrow valley! The accouterments of each soldier weighed about thirty pounds, and made a day's march of twenty miles an arduous task.

A private who had served in the First Kentucky Infantry for three months, proved to be of the wrong sex. She performed camp duties with great fortitude, and never fell out of the ranks during the severest marches. She was small in stature, and kept her coat buttoned to her chin. She first excited suspicion by her feminine method of putting on her stockings; and when 'handed over to the surgeon proved to be a woman, about twenty years old. She was discharged from the regiment, but sent to Columbus upon suspicion, excited by some of her remarks, that she was a spy of the Rebels.

At Cannelton, a hundred slaves were employed in the coal-oil works-two long, begrimed, dilapidated buildings, with a few wretched houses hard by. Nobody was visible, except the negroes. When I asked one of them "Where are all the white people?" he replied, with a broad grin—

"Done gone, mass'r."

* So called, though nearly all its members came from Cincinnati.