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HISTORY OF THE ORPHAN BRIGADE.

Paris, Tenn., where the command halted, an incident occurred which illustrates with what promptness and boldness Chenoweth acted in emergencies. The notorious butcher, Paine, was in command of Federal forces at Paducah when the affair at the Cross Roads occurred, and in this engagement the adjutant of the Sixteenth Kentucky, Waller Bullock, was captured. Col. Chenoweth learned that he had fallen into Paine's hands, and was under sentence of death, though he had been taken in open fight and as a regularly enlisted soldier. Chenoweth had under guard four or five Federal prisoners, whom he had taken at Cumberland River. He at once wrote Paine that if Bullock should be harmed he would immediately kill every prisoner he had. This letter reached the monster by the hands of a Union woman, to whom it had been intrusted; but meanwhile the adjutant had escaped.

Soon after Johnson's misfortune, Gen. Lyon was assigned to the command of the brigade, and during his raid in Kentucky, in the winter of 1864-65 (undertaken to create a diversion in favor of Hood's army in its advance on Nashville), Col. Chenoweth played an especially active part, though it proved unavailing to avert disaster from Hood. It was a campaign of dreadful hardships and suffering, such as he had not hitherto experienced, varied and constant as had been his service. Just before Christmas he burned the Nolin Bridge, on the L. & N. Railway, and near by captured a train of cars loaded with Federal soldiers, a little in rear of one that bore nearly all the Confederate prisoners captured from Hood's army, whom timely information would have enabled him to release. Lyon did not wholly discontinue his operations in the State and on its borders till the spring of 1865, when he withdrew the remnants of his force to Paris, Tenn. There, after the surrender of Lee and Johnston, intending to go to Mexico, he left Col. Chenoweth in chief command.

The latter went shortly afterward to Paducah, where he arranged with Gen. Meredith, then commanding there, liberal terms of surrender, which were approved by the department commander, Gen. Thomas, who furnished him and his staff an escort, and his men transportation, to Nashville; and soon this little brigade, whose experience had been short, but bitter, existed no more as an organization.

His mission to Paducah, though under flag of truce, was a dangerous one, as Mr. Lincoln had but recently been assassinated, and the advent of a Confederate officer into the garrison created excitement; but after conditions had been agreed upon, Gen. Meredith furnished him an escort, commanded by Col. Hawkins (afterward Governor of Tennessee), who took him under safe conduct beyond the Federal lines and treated him with soldierly consideration.