ined sutlers' wagons sometimes accompanied the cavalcade
for the benefit of the protection the escort afforded. Colonel Ward was
sent, with two or three companies of his regiment, to a point on the
pike some eight miles from Carthage, and two or three from our
encampment. He reached it just before sundown, and shortly afterward the
mail train, accompanied by several sutlers' wagons, and under charge of
an escort eighty or a hundred strong, came by, no one apparently
suspecting the slightest danger, and all keeping careless watch. When
the procession came opposite to where Colonel Ward had posted his men
(some seventy yards from the road), the Colonel gave the order to fire
in a loud voice. At the unexpected command, which so suddenly indicated
danger, mail-carriers, sutlers, and guard halted in amazement, and when
the answering volley broke upon them, they went in every direction in
the wildest confusion. Not a shot was fired in return, but the escort
manifested plainly that it felt a very inferior degree of interest in
the integrity of postal affairs.

Few prisoners were taken, but the mail and the wagons were secured. In
one of the latter, a corpulent sutler was found, wedged in a corner, and
much alarmed. He was past speaking when drawn out, but faintly signed
that a bottle he had in his pocket should be placed to his lips.

That evening a staff officer arrived from General Bragg with orders to
General Morgan. He was instructed to make no attack upon Carthage, but
to march as rapidly as possible to Monticello, and strive to intercept a
Federal raiding party which had broken into East Tennessee, under
Brigadier General Saunders, and was threatening Knoxville. Upon the next
morning, consequently, we recrossed the Cumberland and marched in the
direction ordered. After passing through Gainesboro', we got into a very
rugged country and upon the very worst roads. At Livingston we were
overtaken by a tremendous rain, which lasted for two or three days, and
rendered the road almost impassable for artillery. This retarded our
march very greatly, and we arrived at Albany three days later than we
would otherwise have done, to learn that the enemy had already passed
out of East Tennessee by way of Jamestown.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING ROUTE TAKEN BY GEN. MORGAN THROUGH Kentucky
and Indiana JULY, 1863.]

The second brigade was encamped in Turkey-neck Bend of the Cumberland
river, some fifteen miles in direct line from Burkesv