The popular taste in Kentucky and the South does not require the fabulous and romantic; less educated and more primitive than that of the North, it rejects even the beautiful, if also incredible, and is more readily satisfied with plain statements, supported by evidence, or intrinsically probable, than with the most fascinating legend, although illustrated with sketches by special artists.
There rests, too, upon some one identified with this command, the obligation of denying and disproving the frequent and grave charges of crime and outrage which have been preferred against General Morgan and his soldiers. So persistently have these accusations been made, that at one time an avowal of "belonging to Morgan" was thought, even in Kentucky, tantamount to a confession of murder and highway robbery. To this day, doubtless, the same impression prevails in the North, and yet, when it is considered how it was produced, it is surprising that it should or could last so long.
The newspapers are of course responsible for it, as for every other opinion entertained at any time by the Northern public.
It will repay any one who will take the trouble to examine the files of these papers printed during the war, if he desires a curious entertainment. Among many willful misrepresentations of Morgan's as well as of other Confederate commands, many statements palpably false, and regarding events of which the writers could not possibly have obtained correct information, will be found under the most astounding captions, proclaiming the commission of "unheard of atrocities" and "guerrilla outrages," accounts of Morgan having impressed horses or taken forage and provisions from Union men, while highly facetious descriptions of house-burning, jewelry snatching, and a thorough sacking of premises are chronicled, without one word of condemnation, under the heading of "frolics of the boys in blue." In thus referring to the manner in which the Northern newspapers mentioned the respective combatants whose deeds their reporters pretended to record, I have no wish to provoke a renewal of the wordy war.
The Southern journals were undoubtedly sufficiently denunciatory, although they did not always seem to consider a bad deed sanctified because done by their friends. Nor have I any intention of denying that inexcusable excesses were committed at various times by men of Morgan's command. I freely admit that we had men in our ranks whose talents and achievements could have commanded respect even among the "Bummers." There were others, too, whose homes had been destroyed and property "confiscated," whose families had been made to "feel the war," who were incited by an unholy spirit of revenge to commit acts as well worth relation, as any of those for which the "weekly" of his native township has duly lauded the most industrious Federal raider, actuated by a legitimate desire of pleasure or gain. It will not be difficult to prove that such practices met with rebuke from General Morgan and his officers, and that they were not characteristic of his command. There are other impressions about Morgan and "Morgan's men" which I shall endeavor to correct, as, although by no means so serious as those just mentioned, they are not at all just to the reputation of either leader or followers. It is a prevalent opinion that his troops were totally undisciplined and unaccustomed to the instruction and restraint which form the soldier. They were, to be sure, far below the standard of regular troops in these respects, and doubtless they were inferior in many particulars of drill and organization to some carefully-trained bodies of cavalry, Confederate and Federal, which were less constantly and actively engaged in service on the front.