As already stated, I propose on this occasion to give an account of
some of my own experiences as one of Morgan’s Men. A native of Bath
County, Ky., when a boy nine years old, I became a resident of Putnam
County, Ind., to which State my father removed in the autumn of 1851.
In the presidential campaign of 1860, at the age of eighteen, I
canvassed my County for Breckinridge and Lane. There were three other
young men representing the tickets of Abraham Lincoln, John Bell and
Stephen A. Douglas, respectively. We styled ourselves: “The Hoosier
Boys—All Parties Represented,” and canvassed the County, speaking on
Saturday afternoons at as many as ten or a dozen points before the day
of election.
When the War between the States came on, I was an earnest advocate
of State rights, and determined to embrace the first opportunity
offered to go South and enlist in that cause, which I believed to be
right. Three of my brothers were in the Federal army, but I could not
conscientiously go with them.