85S

HISTORY OF THE ORPHAN BRIGADE.

transporting recruits and their effects to Camp Boone, and participating in those exciting scenes about the Nashville depot, where the Government detective, with a force at his command, was constantly on the alert to prevent what he was pleased to denominate blockade-running, and would have prohibited the transportation of men and their baggage to the rendezvous on the border, could he have done so without arousing the fury and the vengeance of the friends of the South who gathered about the outgoing train whenever men and baggage were to be shipped. He then returned to Greenville, Miss., and organized his battery under the following officers, whose commissions bore the dates written opposite their respective names, though their services began at a time even prior to the organization :

Edward P. Byrne, captain, July 13, 1861 ; Guignard Scott, first lieutenant, Aug. 29, 1861 ; Thomas Hinds, first lieutenant, Oct. 9, 1861; Bayless P. Shelby, second lieutenant, Aug. 29, 1861 ; John Joyes, Jr., second lieutenant, Oct. 11, 1861. Elias D. Lawrence, of Louisville, Ky., was the sergeant-major; and Frank Peak, of Chicot County, Ark., was first sergeant. Both of them were afterward promoted to be lieutenants of artillery.

Capt. Byrne reported to Col. Robert A. Johnson, then commanding at Camp Boone, early in August, and entered upon the necessary drill and other disciplinary measures to secure order and efficiency. He was well supplied with blankets, tents/transportation, and whatever else was requisite to the comfort of his men; but he found the new recruits who had gathered there, in some measure, destitute of blankets. He communicated this fact to the ladies of Greenville and the country immediately surrounding, when they took from their beds, regardless of their own discomfort, and notwithstanding the liberal contributions which they had already made, five hundred pairs of fine blankets, which were immediately shipped to Camp Boone, for the battery and the Second Regiment.

When Gen. Buckner advanced into Kentucky, Capt. Byrne's artillery was sent forward, with the Second Regiment, to Green River, capturing at Bowling Green a six-pound gun, which was added to the battery; and he was here instrumental in mounting some twenty-five or thirty men who had come out with Captain (afterward General) Morgan, without horses, and thus materially contributing to render the afterward famous squadron at once effective. The citizens of Washington County, Miss., had furnished him a number of horses in excess of his absolute need at that time, and, as most of those not already under harness were too light for artillery purposes, and could be made useful chiefly as saddle horses, and choosing to dispose of them himself, he placed them at the disposal of Capt. Morgan, who mounted