vicitms

Updated: May 5, 2025

It had scouted and raided; it had reconnoitered and guarded; it had chased guerrillas through the Winter's rain and mud for days and nights together; it had followed John Morgan's dashing troopers along limestone turnpikes that glowed like brick-kilns under the July sun until three-fourths of the regiment had dropped by the roadside in sheer exhaustion; it had marched over the mountains to Cumberland Gap, and back over the mountains to Lexington; across Kentucky and Tennessee to Huntsville, Ala., back across those States to the Ohio River, and again back across Kentucky to Nashville, beside side marches as numerous as the branches on a tree; 50 per cent. of its number had fallen vicitms to sickness and hardship, and 10 per cent. more had been shot, here and there, a man or two at a time, on the picket or skirmish line, at fords or stockades guarding railroad bridges.

John McElroy - The Red Acorn