Raiding With Morgan Read Online Free PDF Page B

ticked away. The lieutenant straightened. “All right, General Morgan will decide whether or not you’re to be treated as a prisoner. I won’t risk insulting Owen Mattson by refusing his would-be son. Just remember, General Morgan is busy issuing orders for a midnight march. His subordinates may turn us away. That happens, it’s the wagon bed for you. Understood?”
    Ty nodded. He’d thrown his eggs in a single basket of his own choosing and would suffer the consequences without complaint.
    Lieutenant Shannon extended a hand. “I’ll have that pistol. I don’t disobey orders. Private Hargrove, tend to this lad’s horse.” Sliding Ty’s Remington behind his silver-buckled belt, Lieutenant Shannon said sharply, “Follow me, Mr. Ty Mattson.”
    Wending his way through the crowd occupying the porch of the Rainer home, Lieutenant Shannon managed to squeeze Ty through the front door. Inside, the parlor reeked of dried sweat, horsehair, cigar smoke, and coal oil fumes. Both Ty and Lieutenant Shannon were taller than almost all of the gathered troopers. Their height gave them a clear view of what held the troopers’ attention like a magnet gripping iron. A rectangular table blocked the doorway accessing the kitchen and behind it sat General John Hunt Morgan.
    Ty couldn’t help staring. He had heard and read of General John Hunt Morgan’s daring raids behind Union lines, his spectacular victories over superior forces, his numerous narrow escapes from pursuing blue-belly cavalry, infantry, and militia, but the significance of those feats paled upon sighting the general in the flesh.
    General John Hunt Morgan was strikingly handsome and dressed in a civilian suit of black broadcloth. A black hat, right side pinned up by golden wreath-around-a-tree embroidery, rested on the table at his elbow. His hands were small and white for a cavalryman. He had a fair complexion, and his mustache and imperial beard were finely trimmed. Dark auburn hair framed his high forehead. His keen gray-blue eyes sparkled with mirth, and the smile that greeted those stepping before him to report and receive orders displayed perfect white teeth.
    In a makeshift war room, ripe with tension and tiptoe hurry, he affected a casual air that relaxed his junior officers and their subordinates; yet he kept the proceedings moving at a steady, decisive pace. In Ty’s mind, Morgan was exactly as the Northern and Southern newspapers described him: the dashing, mounted cavalier who rivaled Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox” of Revolutionary War fame. There was no in-between ground with John Hunt Morgan. Like the pro-Union reporters stated repeatedly, you either loved him or hated him.
    Ty doubted that General Morgan would have time to bother with him. Preparing for a midnight march after a full day in the saddle was exhausting enough without adding the burden of a minor affair to his plate—one that could wait until morning.
    Fortunately, Lieutenant Shannon didn’t share his doubts. The lieutenant waved one of his huge revolvers back and forth above his head for what seemed an eternity. A bespectacled, blond-bearded lieutenant, the sleeves of his Zouave jacket studded with bright coral buttons, was bent over a mound of papers at the end of General Morgan’s table. He eventually spied the waving revolver. Recognizing Lieutenant Shannon, he pointed to the corner of the room directly behind him.
    â€œWe’ll have our audience with General Morgan,” Lieutenant Shannon said, pushing into the crowd. “Lieutenant Hardesty is Morgan’s adjutant. He has his ear.”
    Once key orders were issued, an astonished Ty watched the Rainer parlor empty in less than a half hour, except for Lieutenant Hardesty and General Morgan’s grizzled black servant, Old Box, lingering with a last pot of coffee for his master. Lieutenant Hardesty signed a concluding document and stored his steel