GENERAL NELSON'S SCOUT
As lightly as a Bird he cleared the Fence.
General Nelson's Scout
BY
Byron A. Dunn
Chicago
A. C. McClurg and Company
1898
Copyright
By A. C. McCLURG & COMPANY
A. D. 1898
———
All rights reserved
TO
Milton,
MY LITTLE SON,
WHO WAS GREATLY INTERESTED IN THE STORY
OF "GENERAL NELSON'S SCOUT,"
WHILE BEING WRITTEN,
AND WHO GAVE ME MANY VALUABLE HINTS,
THIS VOLUME IS
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
INTRODUCTION.
Throughout the following pages the threads of history and fiction areclosely interwoven. The plot of the story is laid in the dark and stormydays of 1861, amid the waving trees and blue grass fields of Central Kentucky.
No State wept more bitter tears at the commencement of the dreadfulstruggle between the North and the South than Kentucky. With loving armsshe tried to encircle both, and when she failed, in the language of oneof her most eloquent sons, "So intense was her agony that her greatheart burst in twain."
Resolutions of neutrality did little good. Sympathies and beliefs arenot controlled by resolutions or laws, and never can be. Kentucky wasdivided into two great hostile camps. The Secession element was veryactive, and the Union men saw the State slowly but surely drifting intothe arms of the Confederacy.
Then it was that Lieutenant William Nelson of the United States navy, awell-known and very[Pg 8] popular Kentuckian, asked the privilege of raisingten regiments of Kentucky troops. The request was granted, and Nelson atonce commenced his task. Only a man of iron determination and thehighest courage would have dared to undertake such a work. He became theobject of the fiercest hatred and opposition,—even from many whoprofessed to love the Union. But he never wavered in his purpose, andestablished a camp for his recruits at Dick Robinson, a few miles eastof Danville.
Here it is that the story opens, and Nelson is the chief historicfigure—a figure with many imperfections, yet it can be said of him asit was of King James V., in "The Lady of the Lake":
All military movements chronicled in the story are historically correct.The riot in Louisville, the fight fo