guns, horses, and supplies intended for Morgan at the Gap were in depot at Lexington.  Then Wallace began to catch a glimpse of dawn through the dark tangle of the wilderness.  Some kind of order, prompt and immediate, must be forced out of this chaos; and it came, for the master-spirit was there to arrange and compel.  He mounted several hundred men, giving them rifles instead of sabres.  He manned new guns, procuring harness and ammunition for them from Louisville.  Where there were no caissons, he supplied wagons.  But his regiments were not his sole reliance; he is a believer in riflemen, a fighting class of which Kentucky was full.  These he summoned to his assistance, and was met by a ready and hearty response:  they came trooping to him by hundreds.  Among others, Garrett Davis, United States Senator, led a company of Home-Guards to Lexington.  In this way General Wallace composed, or rather improvised a little army, and all without help, his regular staff being absent, mostly in Memphis.

“Kentucky has not been herself in this war,” exclaimed General Wallace; “she must be aroused; and I propose to do it thoroughly.”

“How will you do it?” asked a skeptic.

“Easily enough, Sir.  Kentucky has a host of great names.  Kentuckians believe in great names.  It is to this tune that the traitors have carried them to the field against us.  I will take with me to the field all the men living, old and young, who have made those names great.  Buckner took the young Crittendens and Clays; by Heaven, I’ll take their fathers!”

“But they can’t march.”

“I’ll haul them, then.”

“They can be of no service in that way.”

“But the magic of their names!” exclaimed Wallace.  “What will the young Kentuckians say, when they hear John J. Crittenden, Leslie Combs, Robert Breckenridge, Tom Clay, Garrett Davis, Judge Goodloe, and fathers of that kind, are going down to battle with me?”

The skeptics held their peace.

General Wallace now constituted a volunteer staff.  Wadsworth, M.C. from Maysville district, was his adjutant-general.  Brand, Gratz, Goodloe, and young Tom Clay were his aids.  Old Tom Clay, John J. Crittenden, Leslie Combs, Judge Goodloe, Garrett Davis, were all prepared and going, when General Wallace was suddenly relieved of his command by General Nelson.

Without instituting any comparison between these two generals, it is enough to say that the supersession of Wallace by Nelson at that moment was most unfortunate and untimely, as the sequel proved, fraught as it was with disastrous consequences.  The circumstances were these.

Scott’s Rebel cavalry had whipped Metcalf’s regiment of Loyalists at Big Hill, some twelve or fifteen miles beyond Richmond, Kentucky, and followed them to within four miles of that town, where they were stopped by Lenck’s brigade of infantry.  The affair was reported to Wallace, with the number and situation of the enemy.  He at once took prompt measures to meet the exigence of the situation.  He could throw Lenck’s and Clay’s brigades upon the Rebel front; the brigade at Nicholasville could take them in flank by crossing the Kentucky River at Tatt’s Ford; while, by uniting Clay Smith’s command with that of Jacob, then en route for Nicholasville, he could plant seventeen hundred cavalry in their rear between Big Hill and Mount Vernon.