“MORGAN’S MEN”
Narrative of Personal Experiences
BY
HENRY LANE STONE
DELIVERED BEFORE
GEORGE B. EASTIN CAMP, No. 803
United Confederate Veterans
AT THE
FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY
LOUISVILLE, KY.
April 8, 1919
PREFACE
This narrative is printed in pamphlet form tocomply with the request of numerous friends and tomeet the suggestion contained in the editorial noticeof the Louisville Evening Post in its issue of May 29,1919, as follows:
“MORGAN’S MEN.”
“The Evening Post has received a copy of an addressdelivered a short time ago before the George B.Eastin Camp of Confederate Veterans, by Col. HenryL. Stone, of the Louisville bar, general counsel of theLouisville & Nashville Railroad Company, the addressbeing largely in the nature of a narrative by thespeaker of his personal experiences as a soldier in thefamous cavalry command of Gen. John H. Morgan.
“The Evening Post much regrets that it can notfind the space for this exciting and instructive story.It covers thirty type-written pages, or seven or eightcolumns in our print, and the story is so well told thatwe feel that nothing could be eliminated, and all thatis possible is to express the hope that either ColonelStone or the local camp of veterans will later see fitto issue the address in pamphlet form. Certainly wehave never seen elsewhere in so condensed a form sovivid a picture of the war-time experiences of thosedashing cavalrymen that the people of the South stillallude to as “Morgan’s Men.”
“Passing by this narrative as something that onewho did not participate therein is incompetent evento review, the Evening Post would call attention,if only for the importance it may have relative to thesoldiers now returning to civil life, to the part playedin the affairs of Kentucky and the Union by thesesoldiers of Morgan’s command after the war wasover. It was a very creditable part. No doubt therewere the few exceptions that prove the rule, but, as abroad proposition, wherever one of “Morgan’s Men”settled, the community gained a good citizen. Wewill not attempt to call the roll of those who helpedto make the history of Louisville in the past fiftyyears. Many of them, indeed, have passed away—BasilW. Duke, John B. Castleman, George B. Eastin,Thomas W. Bullitt and others whose names recallthe best traditions of Louisville. Henry L. Stoneremains with us, vigorous in body, keen in mind, alwaysready to fight, and fight hard, for a good cause,an ornament to the bar and a splendid specimen ofthat splendid manhood that the soldiers of the Confederacyfurnished a reunited country.”[3]
Comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I was asked by Col. Milton, our commander, togive a “talk” to our Camp this evening. I see, though,in his notices which he sent out—I received one—andin the newspapers, he has dignified what I am tosay to you as a