o combat a fantasy. Three years of warfare had
elapsed, and the red-tape and closet warriors suddenly discovered and
gravely declared a reform which was to produce a military millenium. All
officers were to be removed from the commands with which they had served
during these three years, and placed elsewhere. This _reform_ was to
pervade the army. This separation of officers and men who had learned
mutual trust in each other, was intended to produce a perfect and
harmonious discipline. A commander who had acquired the confidence and
love of his men, was, in the opinion of the Richmond gentry, a dangerous
man--such a feeling between troops and officers was highly irregular and
injurious. They thought that the best way to improve the morale of the
army was to destroy all that (in common opinion) goes to make it.

They said that this policy would make the army "a machine," and it
would be difficult to conceive of a more utterly worthless machine than
it would have then been. It is highly probable that, under certain
conditions, the Southern boys can be disciplined. If a few of them were
caught up at a time, and were penned up in barracks for five or six
years, so that a fair chance could be had at them, they might perhaps be
made automatons, as solemn and amenable as the Dutch of the "old army."
But it was absolutely impossible to so discipline the thousands of
volunteers who were suddenly organized and initiated at once into
campaigns and the most arduous duties of the field. In the lack of this
discipline, it was imperatively necessary to cherish between officers
and men the most cordial relations, and to leave always in command those
officers whose characters and services had inspired love, confidence,
and respect.

In the spring of 1864, General Morgan was sent to take command of the
Department of Southwestern Virginia, and which included also a portion
of East Tennessee.

The forces at his disposal were two Kentucky cavalry brigades and the
militia, or "reserves," of that region. One of these brigades of cavalry
had been previously commanded by General George B. Hodge, and was
subsequently commanded by General Cosby. The other was commanded by
Colonel Giltner. Both were composed of fine material, and were together
some two thousand or twenty-five hundred strong.

Kirkpatrick's battalion had passed the latter part of the winter and
early part of spring at Decatur, Georgia, a small village near Atlanta.
Here it enjo