Marshall, Humphrey (1812-1872) to Jefferson Davis

Abingdon, Va. 7. August 1862

My good friend:
You may remember that during my visit to Richmond I expressed to you my strong apprehension that unless Col Morgans movement into Kentucky formed part of a plan of invasion intended to be permanent and Effective, it would do harm instead of good. My object in thus advancing Earnestly my opinion was not attained - he was not checked, and my conclusion was, necessarily, that you did intend his move should commence that invasion to which I alluded, or that you differed from my view altogether.
When he did go, I knew the people of Kentucky would not rise to any great extent; because, they do not know - Col Morgan as a public man, and have not more than heard of him as a military leader. Independently of this general fact, Col Morgan went into Kentucky at a point sparsely settled, avoided the thorough fares of travel, struck at villages without warning to them or their people, stayed no where twenty four hours, and came out as he went - like a meteoric flash. He dazzled the public Eye by his apparently bold and dashing achievement, but it was not the steady light which a prudent people would follow, Expecting to be delivered under its benignant ray from bondage to liberty. I presume Col Morgans mission was not to Establish, but merely to stimulate insurrection, and he so announces in his Georgetown proclamation, when he declares that his is the mere advance of the invading force to which he invites the popular risings not the main force itself. If the public finds itself deceived in the realization [2] of the hopes thus awakened, my judgment is that the benefits derived from Col Morgans "raid" will never compensate for the injuries we shall receive from the condition into which the public mind will lapse.
There is a peculiar incentive to our invasion at this moment, arising from the fact that the Kentucky Election transpired last Monday. At those Elections our friends were every where disfranchised. To Stand as a Candidate for any office, avowing partiality for Southern rights was openly proclaimed by the National Authority acting in the state as a good ground for arrest. Under such lesion the Elections transpired and immediately after the wound we may expect the sting and resentment of the injured. We should avail ourselves of that moment. Besides, the inauguration of the new officers will be followed by active measures to rivet the chains upon our friends by compelling them to oaths of allegiance which in my judgment we should disturb by giving them such a moment to strike at their oppressors. - If they have any spirit left they will respond to us: if they lapsed into a condition of apathy under the disappointment consequent in our failure to come to their relief, it will be a condition of such hopelessness as to forbid the belief that they will rise again without Extreme difficulty.
I have this day sworn in thirty Eight recruits, who have just arrived none of whom live more than twenty five miles from my house - they tell me that the friends through all that section are anxiously awaiting me and they believe if I were in Owen County I would get a thousand men in forty eight hours, but that the opposite party kept troops continually moving among the people to prevent their coming to me and meanwhile they had carried over 800 of the men of Owen before the Lincoln Provost Marshal and had administered the oath to them. This state of affairs must have a speedy solution one way or the other. Men who take an oath will not refine upon the question of whether it is binding in sound Ethics: great numbers will observe its sanctions and so we lose them forever, while the young and ardent as well as the ambitious and the necessitous, finding the dead sea stillness settled over our cause in their county, gulp down Lincolnism and siding with the dominant party rapidly put on the harness & livery of the Usurper and so swell the Military Column of our Enemy. In [3] the operation particularly of this philosophy you find the solution of the astonishing fact that Lincoln, occupying Kentucky, musters three regiments into his service to one mustered into ours. Our men have, all, had to escape a thousand perils to join our standards - theirs have found "the old flag" at home and have heard the paeans of the orator at the hastings sung in the praise of its memories and glories.
So soon as I received the dispatch of Col Morgan of the 16th July from Georgetown I determined to do all in my power to continue the movement, as it had been (though against my judgment) commenced, and therefore I asked your approbation to my attempts to co-operate by making a diversion first and if practicable afterwards a junction. For this purpose I requested a reinforcement to this column of from 5 to 6 thousand men, some artillery and small arms to still, if nothing better could be done I was and am ready to go with the men I have and if that will not do, I am ready to go alone. I may just as well say to you that my mind is made up and in the great deliberateness that I prefer to perish in the attempt to rescue Kentucky from her present ignoble position and to vindicate my own birthright, rather than to stand aloof and witness the spectacle of her ignominy any longer and hear the appeals of her children to me to come to their relief. If the proper time has not come I apprehend it never can come. Kentucky has many sons in the armies of the Confederacy and they have suffered much in the service of our cause. I asked that they might be permitted to join me if they wished to do so. This had been accorded to the Marylanders in the formation of "the Maryland line" - It was not accorded to me. I was informed a few days ago that Mr. Randolph authorized the Hon Mr Reed to say to me that reinforcements to "from four to five thousand men should be sent to me as speedily as practicable - one regiment from Lynchburg; so soon as relieved from guarding the prisoners now in process of being exchanged and the rest so soon as they could be transported from the South" and that the Secretary "pledged himself to let me have 37,000 stand up small arms if I could recruit the men to use them." Permitted by you "to move and be guided by circumstances" - assured by you, that my wishes were noted and "should be complied with if practicable," and then [4] subsequently informed, as above stated, I considered that absent this column was about to have some strength imported to it and that the time had arrived when an opportunity would be given to me to prove my efficiency as well as my devotion to the great cause in which we are engaged - I made report to Maj Genl Loring that I was about to move, so that he could restore me the men who constitute my command and who have been placed by him in service detached from me. (The 8th Virginia Cavalry was ordered by Genl Lee to report to me in April last - the order remains unchanged, but has never been obeyed, though I am told by officers & men of that corps they have been and are anxious to do so) - I then went to see Genl Smith at Knoxville, because he sent me word through Genl Stevenson he wanted some co-operation, and would like to consult &c - Genl Smith was frank, manly and kind. His views & mine coincided, and we agreed that my movement into Kentucky whether regarded as ancillary to one he is about making or as independent is of great import, and I promised him to move through Pound Gap by the 15th of this current month.
He has 10,000 effective men before Genl Morgan, and it is his purpose to commence by the 13th inst to put 8 to 10.000 behind him on the Kentucky side of Cumberland Gap; say at some point between Cumberland ford and Barbourville. Thus Environed, Morgan has but two chances of Escape; one by taking up the Poor fork of the Cumberland River towards Pound Gap (in which event he must abandon his heavy ordnance and strike into a region utterly desolated and famine-stricken -) - the other, by attempting to form a junction with Buell. But, will he not be relieved by a force from Lexington Ky Approaching Smiths rear and compelling him to raise the siege? My movement is intended to meet this difficulty. I suggested that West Liberty in Morgan Co Ky is the geographical centre of Eastern Kentucky and the strategical point of all that section. Place your divisions at West Liberty and describe a circle, the circumference will pass through the mouth of the sandy, through Maysville, through Paris and near Pound Gap. I have a Regiment raised in the mountains [5] of Eastern Kentucky - my mounted rifles are all from the country between West Liberty and the Covington and Lexington RailRoad - beyond that Road and thence to Louisville my own personal influence is stronger than any where else. I want you to keep these elements in your mind's-eye. If I move to West Liberty at once, no force will leave Lexington to relieve the siege of Cumberland Gap. Why? Because while it will be distant from Cumberland Gap 150 miles I will be distant from Lexington only 72 miles. I will have placed myself in the centre of Eastern Kentucky with her mountains nearly all behind me and I can invite her mountaineers to join me. If they have the proper confidence infused by my numbers they will increase my columns two or three thousand in two weeks - If Cincinnati demonstrates on me, I can attack Ohio from Portsmouth to Trenton and still be within 75 miles of my central position - I can blockade the upper Ohio with 3000 men and a few field pieces - I can intercept enough boats in 60 hours to transport 5000 men to Maysville and take that city while my cavalry and artillery advances on Paris or via Carlisle on the Blue Licks and so, I can throw my force on the Maysville & Lexington Turnpike and still be approaching the country where my personal strength is greatest with the people, and still can be moving toward Cincinnati - My native mountains all behind me. If Smith overcomes Morgan at Cumberland Gap and compels his surrender, his combined column can press on to Lexington and I will with mine be on his right flank - If they threaten me from Lexington, Smith can demonstrate to his rear in the direction of Richmond, and Lexington will close for her own defence. Meanwhile, my presence and maintenance of my footing at West Liberty, or advance toward Mount Sterling, will awaken our people all over the State and give me an army able to sustain itself against anything the enemy can start. [6] If Genl Morgan takes up the Poor fork of Cumberland hoping to follow me, and succeeds in getting through the mountains my calculation is he will be so demoralized before he gets through that I can whip him when he approaches or intercept him if necessary on the Sandy. I know you will enquire what I propose to do with the force of the enemy on the Sandy. I answer: he has no force at all on the Sandy above Louisa (50 miles from the mouth) and there he has only about 750 men, liable to be increased to 1000 or 1200 by Kentucky allies - I have already sent a Battalion of Virginia Mounted Riflemen under Capt Witchen, acting as Major, with orders to pass through Logan Boone, Cabell & Wayne counties in this state - to recruit his force on the way - to drive the small bands of Yankees out of those counties and to penetrate to the Ohio river and tap the mouth of the Sandy from the Virginia side thus cutting off the force of Louisa, while it has been my intention for May Regiment of Kentuckians and the Ky Mounted Rifles (together, about 800 strong, but liable to be 1200 by the time they could get to Louisa) with a light battery to go down the Sandy on the Kentucky side, and so dispose of the force at Louisa, then the whole to take the Grayson road, touch Ashland and Greenessburg if necessary and join me afterwards at West Liberty, or if deemed proper under the circumstances make a column to go down the Ohio River. I instructed Capt Witchen, if he saw a chance, to pass over to the Kanawha and destroy the depots of Genl Cox and disperse all his rear guards on the Kanawha, as he goes down; thus taking the widest field also to gather recruits for the Confederate Service. I shall not be at all surprised if he meets me with a full Regiment of mounted Riflemen from what I hear of the temper of the people. It was my object also to put Genl Lorings man on the back track, though I see no particular policy in an advance by Genl Loring farther than Gauley Bridge until the valley of the Kanawha [7] shall be cleared by the Ohio troops being called voluntarily away to defend the towns upon the Ohio River, which assuredly they will be when I advance to West Liberty and make a demonstration towards the river.
To make a call on the Enemy in Kentucky Col Morgan has been sent again into Ky to pass above Gallatin Tenn and to exhibit himself in the western part of the State, towards Bowling Green, Hopkinsville, &c. &c. He will turn up in that quarter shortly and in the interval, acting on the above programme, I propose to penetrate Eastern Kentucky as far as West Liberty and then "to be guided by circumstances." If the Secretary of War can let me have 5000 men I think the greatest good can be effected in a very short time: indeed, I am confident that the movement will tend very greatly to carry the war back to the Ohio sooner than it can be done in any other way for I happen to occupy the position from which a column of 10.000 men can be moved without serious impediment - until it is deployed upon the very centre of a large Geographical district, from which, by mere position, it will threaten Kentucky to her own centre and Ohio for more than an hundred miles of her most opulent border. These are my views and have been from the moment I Entered Kentucky last fall; only then I did not have the propitious assistance of Genl Smiths present position & force. I believe if I can get the reinforcements disired I can accomplish a great deal before the first of October - at least, I will do my best in the trial. I asked you for Brig Genl Hood because in the section wherein I am about to operate he has a large personal connection. I trust, Mr Davis, that your clear military judgment will be with mine in this matter and that you will Exert your own power a little to give me the impetus necessary to get me off. Your telegram of yesterday fell upon me like a cold fall-rain, but I hope after a survey of my plans and views you will afford me the opportunity to [8] do something worthy of my name and of benefit to the country. Always frank and direct with you, I have not concealed from you the chagrin I suffered at my disappointments heretofore, but I have steadily relied upon your promises and have deferred to your judgment and authority. Of course I must still do so, but I cannot refrain from Expressing in the very strongest terms my conviction that this is the golden moment opportunity offers, and that this, once passed, will scarcely recur with parties so advantageously arranged to take the flow of another tide in Kentucky. Again: the Legislature is convened for the 14th of August - that same Legislature which has yoked the State to the car of Lincoln and connived at his usurpations - The call is only another testimony to Magriffins weakness on perfidy but should the Legislature desire to throw off Lincolns rule the presence of a force of 10.000 men, headed by me, at West Liberty will be hailed with delight - if they intend to rivet the chains absolutely on the State, the presence of that force will be hailed with delight by all who intend to resist, in the last extremity. Regarded every way I am clear for the movement. If you cant let me have such a command as I feel that I should have and deserve at your hands, let me have what you can, and if I am to have no command but what I have already, give me the privilege of trying to relieve Kentucky with the means I have already - Give me the small arms promised and I will succeed or never will return to trouble you more.
Your friend
H. Marshall
Hon Jefferson Davis.
The President of the S. Confederacy
Telegraph your reply as my arrangements must be immediate.