Personal Recollections of Distinguished GeneralsShanks, William Franklin Gore
History
Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals
Shanks, William Franklin Gore
Generals -- United States; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Biography
trials and efforts of Rousseau, and condemned, as mistaken, himself and
his neutral comrades who had opposed Rousseau:
"We have come together," he said, "to honor a man, a patriot, a hero,
whom we can scarcely honor too much. A great debt is due to General
Rousseau from our city, from our state, from our nation. At the hands
of Louisville he deserves a civic wreath and a marble statue. He has
stood between her and desolation. We all know what bitter hostilities
on the one side, and what deep apprehensions and misgivings on the
other, he had to contend against when he undertook the bold enterprise
of raising a brigade to resist the rebellion. The best patriots among
us doubted, and hesitated, and faltered, and attempted to divert him
from his purpose, and he was even constrained by their appeals to go
beyond the river, and erect upon the soil of another state the glorious
standard around which he invoked Kentuckians to rally. Denounced,
maligned, and cursed by all the rebels, he received, at best, but a
cold, reluctant, and timid support from the masses of our loyal men.
When he came, one day, from his encampment with two full and splendid
regiments to pass a single hour in our city, the city of his home and
his love, he marched his gleaming columns through our streets amid
an almost deathless stillness, his enemies awed to silence by the
appalling spectacle before them, and his friends scarcely deeming it
prudent to give expression to the enthusiasm secretly swelling in their
bosoms. It must have been with a keen sense of disappointment, if not
of injustice and ingratitude, that he returned to the Indiana shore.
But ere long there came to us all a night of mystery and terror.
Suddenly the electric telegraph between our city and Nashville ceased
to give forth its signs, and the railroad train, anxiously awaited for
hours, came not. In every loyal soul there was a deep presentiment of
impending calamity. It pervaded and burdened the atmosphere. Brave men
gazed into each other's faces and whispered their fears. Then it was
that all loyal eyes and hearts turned instantly to General Rousseau and
his brigade. A signal apprised him of apprehended danger, and in an
incredibly brief space of time, in less than two hours, he crossed the
Ohio, and passed with his brigade so noiselessly through our streets,
that even our citizens, living within thirty yards of his route, heard
him not, and before midnight he was far on his way to meet the expected
invaders. He took his position between Louisville and that rebel army
which would have seized and despoiled her. He was her shield and her
sword. He was her salvation. For this, among other things, we tender
him our gratitude to-night; for this, we tender him our gratitude
forever."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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