. For a while there seemed to be great danger that the
enemy would take us in flank, but the column got fairly out upon the
pike before the blue-coats hove in sight. A few of us remained behind
after the rear guard passed to ascertain the truth of a report the
pickets brought, that the enemy were moving up artillery. The head of an
infantry column had made its appearance on the pike, but halted about
three hundred yards from where we were, and no firing had as yet
occurred on either side. They seemed disposed to reconnoiter, and we
were not anxious to draw their fire.

Hutchinson soon determined to see them closer, and called to one of the
advance guard, whom he had kept with him, to accompany him. This man was
celebrated, not only for his cool, unflinching courage, but also as the
best shot in the Second Kentucky. Every old "Morgan man" will remember,
if he has not already recognized, Billy Cooper. Breckinridge and I
remonstrated with Hutchinson, and urged that his action would only
precipitate the enemy's attack and our retreat--that we would be driven
away before we had witnessed all that we wished to see. There were only
seven or eight men in our party; Gano encouraged him to go--and he
declared that he would go--unless I positively ordered him to remain. He
accordingly started--Cooper with him. There was a considerable
depression in the pike between our position and that of the enemy. Just
as our enterprising friends got down into this hollow, and about half of
the distance they were going, the enemy, having completed the necessary
dispositions, commenced moving forward. I shouted to Hutchinson,
informing him of it, but the noise of his horse's hoofs drowned my
voice; before he discovered the enemy, he was in thirty paces of their
column. He fired his pistol, and Cooper, rising in his stirrups,
discharged his gun killing a man; both then wheeled and spurred away at
full speed. They got back into the hollow in time to save themselves,
but while we were admiring their rapid retreat and particularly noticing
Hutchinson, who came back in great glee, whipping his horse with his hat
as was his custom when in a tight place, a volley, intended for them,
came rattling into us. Two or three citizens who had collected to see
the fun fled like deer, although one of them was a cripple--and, to tell
the truth, we left as rapidly.

I shall never forget this occasion, because it was the first and only
time that I ever saw Colonel