were answered
from every direction by the enemy. But the woods befriended us, as they
had often done before, and we escaped under its shelter. On that same
night a similar adventure befell some Confederates (I think of Starne's
command) on the Franklin pike, and some pickets were killed on the side
of Nashville entirely opposite to that into which all of these roads
(which have been mentioned) run. Of course every thing was attributed to
Morgan, and the Federals were puzzled and uncertain, whether to believe
him really _ubiquitous_, or the commander of two or three thousand men.

A day or two after these occurrences, Morgan went with a flag of truce
to Mitchell's encampment to endeavor to exchange some of his prisoners
for his own men who had been captured. Colonel Wood, who was with him,
was asked confidentially how many men Morgan had, and was told that the
mischief he was doing could only be accounted for upon the supposition
that he had control of a large force. Wood answered, also _in
confidence_, that although he had co-operated with Morgan for two or
three weeks, he was entirely ignorant of the strength of his command.
That he knew, only, that Morgan was controlling the motions of men whom
he (Morgan) rarely saw; and that, although he himself was intimately
cognizant of all that occurred under Morgan's immediate supervision, he
was frequently astonished by hearing from the latter, accounts of
enterprises which had been accomplished by his orders in quarters very
remote from where he was in person operating. Wood saw the impression
which prevailed, and shaped his answers to confirm it. In reality, there
were not in the vicinity of Nashville, at that time, on all sides, more
than three hundred Confederate soldiers. Of this number, Morgan could
control only his own three companies and the fifty men with Wood,
although the others, who were stragglers, and furloughed men from the
Texas Rangers, Starne's, McNairy's and other cavalry regiments, often
joined him upon his expeditions.

Many of the Federal soldiers killed around Nashville, and whose deaths
were, charged to Morgan's men, were killed by the _independent_
partisans, most of them men who lived in the neighboring country, and
had obtained leave to linger, for a while, about their homes. Great zeal
and activity, however, was displayed by all parties.

When the flag of truce party mentioned above got to the picket line, it
was met by an expedition consisting of