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This narrative is printed in pamphlet form to comply with the request of numerous friends and to meet the suggestion contained in the editorial notice of the Louisville Evening Post in its issue of May 29, 1919, as follows:
“The Evening Post has received a copy of an address delivered a short time ago before the George B. Eastin Camp of Confederate Veterans, by Col. Henry L. Stone, of the Louisville bar, general counsel of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, the address being largely in the nature of a narrative by the speaker of his personal experiences as a soldier in the famous cavalry command of Gen. John H. Morgan.
“The Evening Post much regrets that it can not find the space for this exciting and instructive story. It covers thirty type-written pages, or seven or eight columns in our print, and the story is so well told that we feel that nothing could be eliminated, and all that is possible is to express the hope that either Colonel Stone or the local camp of veterans will later see fit to issue the address in pamphlet form. Certainly we have never seen elsewhere in so condensed a form so vivid a picture of the war-time experiences of those dashing cavalrymen that the people of the South still allude to as “Morgan's Men.”
“Passing by this narrative as something that one who did not participate therein is incompetent even to review, the Evening Post would call attention, if only for the importance it may have relative to the soldiers now returning to civil life, to the part played in the affairs of Kentucky and the Union by these soldiers of Morgan's command after the war was over. It was a very creditable part. No doubt there were the few exceptions that prove the rule, but, as a broad proposition, wherever one of “Morgan's Men” settled, the community gained a good citizen. We will not attempt to call the roll of those who helped to make the history of Louisville in the past fifty years. Many of them, indeed, have passed away - Basil W. Duke, John B. Castleman, George B. Eastin, Thomas W. Bullitt and others whose names recall the best traditions of Louisville. Henry L. Stone remains with us, vigorous in body, keen in mind, always ready to fight, and fight hard, for a good cause, an ornament to the bar and a splendid specimen of that splendid manhood that the soldiers of the Confederacy furnished a reunited country.”
I was asked by Col. Milton, our commander, to give a “talk” to our Camp this evening. I see, though, in his notices which he sent out - I received one - and in the newspapers, he has dignified what I am to say to you as an “address.” I will leave it to you, after I get through, whether it is one or the other, or both.
I regret that I have not had an opportunity to prepare much that would be worth while to my Comrades who are here to-night, but will deal with some of my own experiences during the Civil War and give you a narrative of them. This I will undertake to do, with the hope my account may prove somewhat interesting to you. I can only vouch for the truthfulness of what I shall detail from my own personal knowledge.
There is no tie of friendship so strong and lasting as that wrought by a common service among soldiers engaged in a common cause. Time and distance are powerless to sever such a tie or to erase from memory the vivid recollections of dangers encountered and hardships endured.
On a September night nearly fifty-eight years ago,
John H. Morgan led forth from the City of Lexington
his little squadron of faithful followers, who
formed the nucleus of that gallant command which
afterward, under his matchless leadership, executed
so many brilliant military achievements and won for
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.
On September 18, 1862, after the battle of Big Hill, near Richmond, Ky., and the occupation of this State by the forces of Gens. Smith and Marshall, I put aside the study of law, bade farewell to my parents, and left Indiana to join the Confederate army. I came to Cincinnati while it was under martial law, passed the pickets above the city, in a countryman's market wagon, took a boat at New Richmond, Ohio, and landed on a Sunday morning at Augusta, Ky. That day I attended Sunday-school in Augusta, and walked to Milton, in Bracken County, where I stayed all night. The next day I reached Cynthiana, and found there the first confederate soldiers I ever saw, being a portion of Morgan's Men under Col. Basil W. Duke. I remember I was struck with the odd appearance of some of these soldiers, particularly observing their large rattling spurs and broad-rimmed hats, many of which were pinned up on one side with a crescent or star.
This was but a few days before Col. Duke's desperate fight at Augusta.
An incident occurs to my mind here. Ten years
later I was Democratic Elector for the Ninth Congressional
District, making a campaign in behalf of
Greeley and Brown, and Augusta was one of my
points to speak. While at the hotel that night, a
young man came to my room and that of Hon. John
I arrived at Mount Sterling, and set foot “on my native heath,” in Bath County, within a week after my departure from Indiana.
On October 7, 1862, I enlisted at Sharpsburg in Capt. G. M. Coleman's company, composed chiefly of my boyhood schoolmates and belonging to Maj. Robert G. Stoner's battalion of cavalry, which was subsequently, in Middle Tennessee, consolidated with Maj. Wm. C.P. Breckinridge's battalion, thus forming the 9th Kentucky Regiment in Morgan's command.
I was appointed sergeant major of Maj. Stoner's
battalion, and served in that capacity until the consolidation
Sixty days after my enlistment our regiment was
engaged in its first fight at Hartsville, Tenn., where
Col. Morgan won his commission as brigadier general
and achieved, perhaps, his most brilliant victory by
killing and wounding over four hundred of the enemy and
capturing two splendid Parrott guns with more than two
thousand prisoners. On the day after this battle, I wrote a
letter to my father and mother (the original of which has
been preserved), headed as follows: “In camp two miles
from Gen. Morgan's headquarters and eight miles from
Murfreesboro on the Lebanon Pike, Monday, December
8, 1862.” The fight
Among other things, I gave in this letter the following account of our engagement at Hartsville, which may serve to illustrate the exuberance of spirits felt over that victory by a soldier of twenty years of age, after only two months' service:
We've had only one battle yet, and that was
on yesterday at Hartsville, in this State. I'll
give you a short description of it. Day before
yesterday morning at nine o'clock we left camp
with all of Morgan's Brigade, except two regiments
(Duke's and Gano's), and also the Ninth
Then occurs in this letter what may seem now somewhat ludicrous, but it is here and I will read it:
I captured a splendid overcoat, lined through
and through, a fine black cloth coat, a pair of
new woolen socks, a horse muzzle to feed in,
an Enfield rifle, a lot of pewter plates, knives and
The officers of the forces captured were paroled and sent through the lines. One of them promised to see that this letter reached its destination, and in it I stated:
I'll tell you how I've met with a chance to send this to you. It is by a very gentlemanly Yankee lieutenant whom we captured yesterday who says he'll mail it to you from Nashville, and I think he'll be as good as his word. I shall leave it unsealed, and he'll get it through for me without trouble, I think.
But he failed to discharge the trust he had assumed. Some three weeks afterwards it was found at Camp Chase, Ohio, and sent to my father by a man named Samuel Kennedy.
On our celebrated raid into Kentucky during the
Christmas holidays of 1862 we captured at
Muldraugh's Hill an Indiana regiment of about eight
hundred men, who were recruited principally in Putnam
County, many of whom were my old friends and
acquaintances. I saw and conversed with a number
of them while prisoners in our charge, and had my
fellow-soldiers show them as much kindness as possible
under the circumstances. This regiment had
That was my first acquaintance with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. We burned all the trestles on Muldraugh's Hill, and thus cut the connections of the Federal army in Tennessee.
There are doubtless some here to-night who were
on Morgan's remarkable raid into Indiana and Ohio,
nearly fifty-six years ago. The first brigade crossed
the Cumberland River at Burksville, Ky., July 2,
1863, when it was out of its banks, floating driftwood,
and fully a quarter of a mile wide. The crossing
of our twenty-four hundred men and horses was
effected by unsaddling and driving the horses into
the swollen stream, twenty or thirty at a time, and
letting them swim to the opposite bank, where they
were caught and hitched, while the men went over in
two flat-boats and a couple of indifferent canoes. I
shall never forget the perilous position I was in on
that occasion. There were twelve of us, who crossed
over between sundown and dark, with our twelve
saddles in one canoe. The surging waters came lapping
up to within three inches of the edges of the
canoe, and on the upper side once in a while they
splashed in. The two men at the oars were inexperienced,
and made frequent mistakes during the passage,
On this raid, after the disastrous attack of July
4, upon the stockade at Green River bridge, where
we lost so many brave officers and men, we, the next
day, drove Col. Charles Hanson's infantry regiment,
the 20th Kentucky, into the brick depot at Lebanon,
Ky. Our troops surrounded the building, but were
greatly exposed to the enemy's fire, and suffered
under the heat of a broiling sun for four hours. Some
of our men concealed themselves by lying down in or
behind the tents just vacated by the Federal troops.
When the order was given by Gen. Morgan to charge
the enemy, I witnessed an admirable exhibition of
courage on the part of Col. D. Howard Smith. He
mounted his horse and led the assault himself, calling
on us to follow him, in plain view of the enemy and
under a terrific fire from the depot, not exceeding a
hundred yards from our advancing columns. On
the other side of the building, in the charge of the
Second Kentucky, just before the surrender, Lieut.
Thomas Morgan, a younger brother of Gen. Morgan
was killed - shot through the heart. He was idolized
by his regiment, and many of his comrades, infuriated
by his death, in the excitement of the moment,
would have shown no quarter to the Federal soldiers
had it not been for the noble and magnanimous conduct
of Gen. Morgan himself. Although stricken
with grief over the lifeless body of his favorite brother,
and with his eyes filled with tears, I saw him rush
When our command crossed the Ohio River at Brandenburg, in two steamboats we had captured, I experienced some peculiar sensations as I set foot on Indiana soil and realized that I was engaged in a hostile invasion of my adopted State. I soon got over this feeling, however, and regarded our march into the enemy's country as one of the exigencies of war and entirely justifiable. I was in the advance guard under Capt. Thomas H. Hines (afterward one of the judges of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky) through Indiana and Ohio, and was captured at Buffington Island. I rode down eight horses on that raid, and although this number was perhaps above the average to the man, there were doubtless fifteen thousand horses ridden at different times by Morgan's Men on the Indiana and Ohio raid.
About seven hundred of our command under Col.
Richard Morgan, surrendered at Buffington Island,
and we were started down the river on a boat next
day in charge of some Ohio troops (the 12th Ohio
Infantry, as I recall), who treated us with great
courtesy. Gen. Morgan and the remainder of his
After our arrival in Cincinnati, we were shipped
in box cars to Camp Morton at Indianapolis. I now
began to appreciate what it was to be a prisoner of
war, and that, too, within forty miles of the home of
my parents. I was not entirely sure, either, of what
would be the fate of a Rebel from the Hoosier State.
I was, however, shown much kindness by one of the
companies of the 71st Indiana Regiment, which
constituted our prison guard. It was made up of my
neighbor boys in Putnam County, and they all seemed
rejoiced to see me there. Through their intervention
I received clothing and other necessaries from
home and obtained an interview with my brothers
and some of my old friends, who had learned of my
capture and came over to Indianapolis to see me.
Remaining one month at Camp Morton, we were then sent to Camp Douglas, at Chicago.
On the night of October 16, 1863, having been
confined in prison three months, accompanied by one
of my messmates, William L. Clay, I tied my boots
around my neck and in my sock feet climbed the
prison fence, twelve feet high, between two guards
and made my escape. I still have the handkerchief
My comrade and I left the city by the Illinois
Central, going to Mattoon, thence to Terre Haute,
where we tarried at a German hotel two days, most
of the time playing pool, having written home to some
of my family to meet me there. After seeing two of
my brothers and obtaining some additional funds,
we came by rail to Cincinnati, thence by boat to
Foster's Landing, Ky., and from there footed it
through Bracken, Nicholas and Bourbon Counties.
Clay separated from me in the latter county. He
died several years ago in this city, where he practiced
I reached Bath County a few days afterward, and early one morning I was captured in the very house where I was born by a squad of home guards in charge of Dr. William S. Sharp, who was my father's family physician when we lived in Kentucky. I was taken to Mount Sterling, and there lodged in jail - in the dungeon. To keep the rats from eating my bread I tied it up to the wall with the chains which were said to have been used in the confinement of runaway slaves before the Civil War. My imprisonment there, however, was greatly relieved by the visits of kind friends, among whom was the one destined to become my wife. I saw that old jail building every day, when at home, during the seven years I resided and practiced law in Mount Sterling from 1878 to 1885, when I removed to Louisville. It had been converted into a dwelling-house, and was then Owned by Col. Thomas Johnson, an ex-Confederate Colonel, who lived to be over ninety years of age.
To make good my escape from Camp Douglas and to be again taken prisoner after getting five hundred miles on my way back to Dixie was extremely mortifying. I was confined in jail at Mount Sterling two weeks, and was then started in a covered army wagon with other prisoners to Lexington.
Having serious apprehensions as to the reception I would meet with at the hands of Gen. Burbridge (who had about that time an unpleasant way of hanging and shooting such Rebels as he caught in Kentucky, having only a short time before so disposed of Walter Ferguson, one of Morgan's men, whom I knew quite well), I succeeded in making my escape in the nighttime at Winchester, eluding the vigilance of Lieut. Curtis and his thirty mounted guards, who fired a few harmless shots at me as I disappeared in the darkness.
That night I made my way to Alpheus Lewis', an old gentleman who lived near our camp as we went South at the beginning of the war. We had camped there around a sulphur spring. It was an exceedingly cold evening, the latter part of November. In crossing a water-gap over Stoner Creek, I slipped and fell into the water and got pretty well soaked. I had on a suit of butternut jeans clothing, and in ten minutes after I had gotten out, the water had frozen and my clothing rattled like sheet iron. I found my way to Lewis' home, and stayed there part of the night and then left, because I had made some inquiries on the road, and was fearful I might be caught if I remained all night.
A few days later, finding no opportunity to get
South, owing to the presence of Federal troops in
Eastern Kentucky, with the aid of friends I got on
the train at Paris, Ky., and went to Canada via Cincinnati,
Just before entering Paris, I saw two guards in Federal uniform, and “Wash” told me there was difficulty in getting passes out of Paris, and it was right difficult to get into Paris. As soon as I saw these soldiers - I had to make up my mind quickly - I addressed them first, before they had time to say or do anything. I said “See here, gentlemen, I have got a boy here with me that is going to take my horse back. I am going to Cincinnati with stock, and I want to know if he will need a pass to get out?” One of the guards answered “No, that will be all right. We will recognize him and let him through,” and so they did.
I stayed in Canada, at Windsor and Kingsville,
four months. During that winter (1863-4) occurred
cold New Year's Day. I went to a Methodist watch
meeting the night before and stayed until after midnight.
When I got back to my hotel at Kingsville
it was blustering and getting cold fast. The next
morning by seven or eight o'clock it was so cold that
neither the young man that was with me nor myself
could hardly get out of bed. It was eighteen degrees
I learned to make cigars while I was up there in Canada, and I got short of funds before I left, and my landlady took my stock of cigars which I had left for a balance on my board-bill. It was very small, - only $1.75 a week for board and lodging.
When I went to Canada, I got to the Hirons
House in Windsor and thought I would register. I
looked over the register to see if I knew anybody
stopping there. I knew there was a lot of Confederates
who had gotten out of Camp Douglas and gone
to Canada. I looked over the page, and nearly every
one whose signature I saw on it - I recognized a good
many of them - had registered his name, Company,
Regiment, Brigade, Confederate States Army.
Thinks I, if they can so register, I can too. So I
When I prepared to leave Canada, I knew a Confederate
soldier was watched by detectives from
across the Detroit River. I got on the train from the
East as it slowed up and came into Windsor. I do not
recall whether it was a Grand Trunk train or the
Canadian Pacific, but at any rate I got off the train
before we reached the depot, and some detective
evidently saw me. When I got out among the other
passengers and undertook to get on the ferry boat, he
was following me. Thinks I, this
Another thing: I thought I had become pretty well known, and to disguise myself, I had my hair dyed before leaving Windsor. You can imagine what a sight I was. My moustache and chin whiskers were dyed a deep black with nitrate of silver or some sort of preparation. I paid five dollars for it, I know. In that way, I came on to Kentucky without being detected. I came to Covington, and at a restaurant there I sat right opposite a man that was with me and knew me well in Windsor. He had gone up there, I think, to evade the draft. He did not recognize me at all. I did not say anything to him, nor he to me. I was pretty well disguised.
It was in April, 1864, when I returned to Kentucky from Canada. While watching a chance to go back to the confederacy, I worked on a farm three weeks near Florence, in Boone County, a town afterward celebrated, in John Uri Lloyd's novel, as “Stringtown-on-the-Pike.” While there I visited, on Sundays, my aunt and family, who lived nearby.
On General Morgan's last raid into the State, I
joined a small portion of his forces near Mount Sterling,
having made my way to them alone on horseback
from Boone County. By the way, I got my horse -
borrowed it, of
We returned to Georgia in time to follow in the rear of Sherman in his “march to the sea.” Under Gen. Wheeler, as we followed in the path of desolation left by Sherman's army, we were daily engaged with Gen. Kilpatrick's cavalry, and for eight days were without bread or meat, living on sweet potatoes alone, the only food left from destruction by the Federal troops. The first meat we ate after this fast was some fresh beef, which we found in a camp from which we had just driven the enemy before they had had time to cook and eat it.
When the news of Gen. Lee's surrender was received, our brigade was at Raleigh, N. C. President Davis and his Cabinet officers joined us at Greensboro, N. C., and our command escorted them from there to Washington, Ga., where it disbanded. I rode to Augusta, Ga., with Lieut. William Messick, who was from Danville, Ky., and there I surrendered to the 18th Indiana Infantry Regiment, then occupying the city, and received my parole May 9, 1865.
Before we were disbanded at Washington, Ga., the remnants of the funds of the Confederate States, in specie, that had been hauled by wagons through from Richmond, was distributed among the troops at that time. I remember the men of our brigade got $26.00 a piece. Most of it was in Mexican dollars, silver money. I brought it home with me. Fortunately, I had enough to get home on without using that money, and, after our marriage, my wife and I thought it would be a good idea to have that silver made into spoons. We took it down to Duhme & Company, at Cincinnati, and enjoined upon them to use that silver, and no other, in a set of tablespoons, and those spoons are on our table today.
No man can fully or correctly appreciate the
value of personal liberty who has never been a prisoner.
At least three-fourths of Morgan's men felt
what it was to endure the fearful life of a Northern
military prison, and many of them were humiliated
by incarceration in the loathsome dungeons and cells
of penitentiaries while prisoners of war. Fortunately
for me, I escaped from Camp Douglas in time
to avoid the starvation policy subsequently inaugurated
there, which was said to have been enforced
by way of retaliation for the treatment Federal prisoners
received at Andersonville, Ga. The difference
between the two was that at Andersonville the
Confederates did not have the food to give the prisoners.
The same restless, daring spirit that actuated Morgan's men in the field characterized them in prison, and out of eighteen hundred prisoners taken on the Indiana and Ohio raid not less than six hundred of them escaped from Camps Morton and Douglas. I have heard that one of the Chicago newspapers stated during the war that even if Morgan's men had done nothing to distinguish them before their capture on the raid through Indiana and Ohio, they had immortalized themselves by their wonderfully successful escapes from prison.
The extraordinary escape of Gen. Morgan himself,
together with Capts. Hines, Sheldon, Taylor,
Hockersmith, Bennett and McGee, from the Ohio
State Prison, stands without a parallel in military
Getting on the ferry boat at Covington on the Kentucky side, on my trip to Canada, just as it was landing coming over from the Cincinnati side, I saw ten or fifteen steps ahead of me my uncle, Higgins Lane, and my aunt, his wife, from Indiana. He was my mother's brother, whom I dearly loved, but knew to be an intense Union man. And uncle as he was, I was afraid that he would expose me and have me arrested. I immediately dodged around the boat and did not see him any more. I learned afterward that I had misjudged him, and done him an injustice. He announced that he would not have thought of such a thing as having me arrested. At my home at Owingsville, in Bath County, after the war, my wife and I had the pleasure of entertaining him and my aunt as hospitably as was in our power.
I may further relate, on that trip to Canada, I
stopped at the Island House in Toledo. I thought
Most of the survivors of Gen. Morgan's command
remember that brave and gallant soldier, Col. George
St. Leger Grenfell, who came to us and was on Gen.
Morgan's staff, after long and faithful service in the
British army. He did me a kindness during the
war, which I have remembered with gratitude ever
since. By an accident my horse's back had become
so sore he could not be ridden, and in the fall of 1862,
Afterward, Col. Grenfell, for alleged complicity
in the plot to release the Confederate prisoners from
Camp Douglas, was arrested by the Federal authorities
and sentenced to imprisonment at Fort Jefferson,
Tortugas Island. In April, 1867, my brother,
Maj. Valentine H. Stone, of the 5th United States
Regular Artillery, who had been stationed at Fortress
Monroe for eighteen months, was assigned to
take command at Fort Jefferson. He was two years
older than I, and he was the brother who, as one of
the “Hoosier Boys,” advocated the cause of Bell and
Everett in 1860. He afterward went into the Army,
the 5th Regular U. S. Artillery. I will have
more to say of him directly. On learning where
he had been assigned, I wrote to him, giving an account
of Col. Grenfell's kindness to me on the occasion
referred to, and requested him to do all in his
power, consistent with his duty, to alleviate the
prison life of my old army friend, who was, as a true
soldier and gentleman, worthy of such consideration.
With this request there was a faithful compliance
on the part of my brother, which Col. Grenfell gratefully
In September, 1867, yellow fever broke out at Fort Jefferson. Col. Grenfell, having had large experience with this dreadful disease, faithfully nursed all who were stricken down among the garrison as well as other prisoners. My brother's wife was one of the first victims. After her death, my brother started North with his little three-year-old boy, but was taken ill of yellow fever while aboard the vessel, and died at Key West. In a letter written by Col. Grenfell the next day, in which he gave me an account of my brother's death, he stated:
I deeply regret that his leaving this place prevented my nursing him throughout the malady. Care does more than doctors, and he had great confidence in my nursing. . . . I am tired and grieved, having been now twenty-one days and nights by the bedsides of the sick (last night was my first night passed in bed) - grieved on account of the death of your brother, who was the only officer that ever showed me any kindness since I first came here. I wish I could say that they had not been positively inimical and cruel. But your brother's arrival put an end to all that. I am much afraid that the old system will soon again be in force.
From this grand old soldier I received a few months later the following interesting letter:
H. L. Stone, Esq. - Dear Sir: Your always welcome
letter of the 22nd of December was duly
received, and, believe me, I appreciate and
reciprocate your kind expressions of regard. I
owe to your friendship the knowledge imparted
to Gen. Basil Duke that the heavy restrictions
placed on me for no fault of mine by former
commanders had been removed by the humanity
of your poor brother, and I am happy to say
that the present commander, Maj. Andrews,
walks in Maj.
It was gratifying to hear that your poor little orphan nephew arrived safely at his maternal grandfather's. I knew little of the child, but from what I heard he was a very shrewd one. He was too young to feel his loss deeply. I have two cypresses which I am taking care of (they came from Havana) and mean to place on Mrs. Stone's grave, which is on an island about a mile from this.
Maj. Stoner's bridal trip was nearly turned into a funeral. (I forget that instance. I wrote him something about it. Perhaps some of you remember Maj. Stoner's bridal trip when he married Miss Rogers. He had some trouble with the conductor. I forget now what it was.)
What a savage the conductor must have been! The Major wanted two or three of his command to be near him at the time of the assault.
Basil Duke and Charlton Morgan write that
they are busy enlisting in my favor all the
I shall be happy to receive your scrawls, as you call them, whenever you have time to indite one, although I can offer you nothing but wails and lamentations in return.
Whilst you are blowing your fingers' ends
from cold, I keep close to an open window with
one blanket only, and that oftener off than on.
I have tomatoes, peppers, and melons in full
bloom. Salad, radishes, and peas and beans at
maturity in the open air, of course. In fact, I
am obliged to use sun shades from ten to three
all through the garden, for be it known to you
they have turned my sword into a shovel and a
rake, and I am at the head of my profession
here. What I say or do (horticulturally) is law.
Some time after this letter was written, how long I do not remember, Col. Grenfell undertook to make his escape from the Dry Tortugas in a small boat on a stormy night, hoping to be able to reach the Cuban coast, but was never heard of afterward.
My brother, Maj. Stone, while in command at
Fortress Monroe, requested and obtained from President
Capt. Hy. L. Stone - My Dear Sir: Accept my best wishes for your welfare and happiness. It is better to deserve success than to attain it.
Here (showing it) is that autograph letter. If any of you would like to see it, I have it here for that purpose. I have preserved it since I received it fifty-three years ago from my brother.
Speaking of my brother being in charge of Fortress Monroe (which was after the cruel treatment of Jefferson Davis at the hands of his predecessor), in the book of Mrs. Davis on the life of her husband, and in the book of Dr. Cravens, I believe it was, they speak of my brother's kindness to President Davis while he was in charge at Fortress Monroe, and before he went to the Dry Tortugas.
In February, 1868, the remains of Maj. Stone and wife were removed and re-interred in Montgomery Cemetery, overlooking the Schuylkill River, at Norristown, Penn., the home city of his father-in-law, Judge Mulvaney. Some ten years ago my brother, Dr. Stone, and I caused a monument to be erected over our brother's grave, with the following inscription thereon:
Valentine Hughes Stone, Major Fifth Artillery,
U. S. Army. Born in Bath County, Ky.,
December 22, 1839, and died aboard the steamer
from Fort Jefferson to Key West, Fla., Sept.
24, 1867. He was enrolled April 18, and mustered
into service April 22, 1861, in the 11th Indiana
Infantry Volunteers, Gen. Lew Wallance's
Regiment of Zouaves, being the first Volunteer
from Putnam County, Ind., to respond to the
call of President Lincoln. He was appointed
First Lieutenant, 5th U. S. Artillery, May 14,
This monument was erected and dedicated to his memory by his brothers, Henry L. Stone, who served in the Confederate Army, and R. French Stone, who served in the Union Army, during the Civil War.
The course of ex-Confederates since the war
closed deserves, as a rule, the highest commendation.
As far as my observation extends, good soldiers in
time of war make good citizens in time of peace. The
toils and hardships of army life fit and prepare them
for the battles of civil life. The success of ex-Confederates
as civilians has been commensurate with
their success as soldiers. Kentucky has selected
from Morgan's men some of her highest legislative,
judicial and
I want to say for myself, I got back from the Civil War in the summer of 1865. For four months, I clerked in a dry goods store at Ragland's Mills, on Licking River, in the east end of Bath County. How much do you reckon my salary was? I got my board and $12.50 a month! I am glad to say I receive, in my present position, a little more than that now.
After the surrender in April, 1865, President Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation, whereby the rights of citizenship were withheld from certain classes who participated in waging war against the United States Government, among whom were those who had left a loyal State and joined the Confederate Army. It becomes necessary, therefore, for me to obtain a special pardon from the President, which I did in the summer of 1865, through the aid of my uncle, Henry S. Lane, then United States Senator from Indiana.
Most of us have passed far beyond the meridian of life, but I trust there is much usefulness in store for us yet. We should not content ourselves with the victories and honors of the past. The present and future have demands upon us. The welfare of our respective communities and States, as well as of our common country, calls for our continued labors in their behalf.
I shall always remember a remark made by my
friend, Jerry R. Morton, of Lexington (one of Morgan's
men, and, for many years after the war, Circuit
Judge of that district), who has passed on ahead
of us, one day while we were in Canada together.
We were walking along the Detroit River, and as
we took in the broad landscape view that stretched
out before us, and saw the United States flag floating
from a fort below the city on the other side, he
stopped and, pointing across the river, exclaimed:
“I tell you, Stone, that's a great country over yonder!”
I acknowledged the correctness of his estimate
of the American republic. Standing on foreign
soil, poor, self-exiled Rebels as we were, we did not
feel at liberty to call this our country then. But all
of us have the right to call it our country today.
With peace and prosperity throughout the land and
all sections again united in fraternal feeling, we
have, even in this progressive age, beyond question
the greatest country in the world.
In the world war that has practically, if not entirely, closed, we know what our country did for the cause of human liberty. The boys in khaki went across the seas, - the descendants of those who wore the gray and those who wore the blue, and they turned the tide of battle against the foe. That is conceded. We are today looked up to by all the nations of Europe to bring about a Treaty of Peace, and a League of Nations, that will prevent, as far as possible, wars for the future. We have, in my opinion, dealing with the situation and laboring with it in Paris, as great a President as this country has ever had; and if he come back home, as I believe he will, with this League of Nations secured, and a Treaty of Peace that shall do justice to all the belligerents, including our recent foes, as well as the other nations of the world, he will go down in history, in my opinion, as the greatest statesman of all times - Woodrow Wilson. May God bless him! (Great applause.)