om his own
countrymen; a cavalryman on some out-post department, perhaps, without
rations, fluttering with rags; shod, if shod at all, with shoes that
sucked in rain and cold; sleeping at night under the blanket that kept
his saddle by day from his sore-backed horse; paid, if paid at all,
with waste paper; hardened into recklessness by war--many a rebel
soldier thus became a guerrilla--consoling himself, perhaps, with the
thought that his desertion was not to the enemy."

Bad as the methods of such men were, they were hardly worse than the
means taken in retaliation. At first, Confederate sympathizers were
arrested and held as hostages for all persons captured and detained by
guerillas. Later, when a citizen was killed by one of these bands, four
prisoners, supposed to be chosen from this class of free-booters, were
taken from prison and shot to death on the spot where the deed was
done. Now it was rare that one of these brigands was ever taken alive,
and thus regular soldier after soldier who was a prisoner of war, and
entitled to consideration as such, was taken from prison and murdered
by the Commandant without even a court-martial. It was such a death
that Dan Dean and Rebel Jerry had narrowly escaped. Union men were
imprisoned even for protesting against these outrages, so that between
guerilla and provost-marshal no citizen, whether Federal or
Confederate, in sympathy, felt safe in property, life, or liberty. The
better Unionists were alienated, but worse yet was to come. Hitherto,
only the finest chivalry had been shown women and children throughout
the war. Women whose brothers and husbands and sons were in the rebel
army, or dead on the battle-field, were banished now with their
children to Canada under a negro guard, or sent to prison. State
authorities became openly arrayed against provost-marshals and their
followers. There was almost an open clash. The Governor, a Unionist,
threatened even to recall the Kentucky troops from the field to come
back and protect their homes. Even the Home Guards got disgusted with
their masters, and for a while it seemed as if the State, between
guerilla and provost-marshal, would go to pieces. For months the
Confederates had repudiated all connection with these free-booters and
had joined with Federals in hunting them down, but when the State
government tried to raise troops to crush them, the Commandant not only
ordered his troops to resist the State, but ordered the muster-o