Among the many brave men who have taken part in this war,--whose dying embers are now being trodden out by a "poor white man,"--none, perhaps, have done more service to the country, or won less glory for themselves, than the "poor whites" who have acted as scouts for the Union armies. The issue of battles, the result of campaigns, and the possession of wide districts of country, have often depended on their sagacity, or been determined by the information they have gathered; and yet they have seldom been heard of in the newspapers, and may never be read of in history. Romantic, thrilling, and sometimes laughable adventures have attended the operations of the scouts of both sections; but more difficulty and danger have undoubtedly been encountered by the partisans of the North than of the South. Operating mostly within the circle of their own acquaintance, the latter have usually been aided and harbored by the Southern people, who, generally friendly to Secession, have themselves often acted as spies, and conveyed dispatches across districts occupied by our armies, and inaccessible to any but supposed loyal citizens. The service rendered the South by these volunteer scouts has often been of the most important character. One stormy night, early in the war, a young woman set out from a garrisoned town to visit a sick uncle residing a short distance in the country. The sick uncle, mounting his horse at midnight, rode twenty miles in the rain to Forrest's head-quarters. The result was, the important town of Murfreesboro' and a promising Major-General fell into the hands of the Confederates; and all because the said Major-General permitted a pretty woman to pass his lines on "a mission of mercy." At another time, a Rebel citizen, professing disgust with Secession for having the weakness to be on "its last legs," took the oath of allegiance and assumed the Union uniform. Informing himself fully of the disposition of our forces along the Nashville Railroad, he suddenly disappeared, to reappear with Basil Duke and John Morgan in a midnight raid on our slumbering outposts.