ed and fifty feet of bridging,
three depots, three water stations, and a number of culverts and
cattle-guards. The impression which prevails in some quarters, that
General Morgan left the road on account of the pursuit of Colonel
Harlan, is entirely erroneous. With the destruction of the great
trestles at Muldraugh's hill, his contract with the road expired and he
prepared to return. He would have liked to have paid the region about
Lexington another visit, but General Bragg had urged him not to delay
his return. Harlan was moving slowly after us; but for the delay
consequent upon the destruction of the road, he would never have gotten
near us and, but for an accident, he would never have caught up with any
portion of the column, after we had quitted work on the railroad.

On the night of the 28th, the division had encamped on the southern bank
of the Rolling fork. On the morning of the 29th, it commenced crossing
that stream, which was much swollen. The bulk of the troops and the
artillery were crossed at a ford a mile or two above the point at which
the road from Elizabethtown to Bardstown along which we had been
encamped, crosses the Rolling fork. The pickets, rear-guard, and some
detachments, left in the rear for various purposes, in all about three
hundred men, were collected to cross at two fords--deep and difficult to
approach and to emerge from. Cluke's regiment, with two pieces of
artillery, had been sent under Major Bullock to burn the railroad bridge
over the Rolling fork, five miles below the point where we were. A
court-martial had been in session for several days, trying Lieutenant
Colonel Huffman, for alleged violations of the terms granted by General
Morgan to the prisoners at the surrender of the Bacon creek stockade.

Both brigade commanders, and three regimental commanders, Cluke,
Hutchinson, and Stoner, were officers or members of this court. Just
after the court had finally adjourned, acquitting Colonel Huffman, and
we were leaving a brick house, on the southern side of the river and
about six hundred yards from its bank, where our last session had been
held, the bursting of a shell a mile or two in the rear caught our ears.
A few videttes had been left there until every thing should have gotten
fairly across. Some of them were captured; others brought the
information that the enemy was approaching. This was about eleven A.M.
We knew that a force of infantry and cavalry was cautiously following
us,