Only sixteen he was, sir--a fond mother's only son--
Off and away with Morgan before his life had begun!
The damp drops stood on his temples; drawn was the boyish mouth;
And I thought me of the mother waiting down in the South! 

O, pluck was he to the backbone; and clear grit through and through;
Boasted and bragged like a trooper; but the big words wouldn't do;
The boy was dying sir, dying, as plain as plain could be,
Worn out by his ride with Morgan up from the Tennessee. 

But, when I told the laddie that I too was from the South,
Water came into his dim eyes, and quivers around his mouth;
"Do you know the Blue-Grass country?" he wistfully began to say;
Then swayed like a willow sapling, and fainted dead away. 

I had him into the log-house, and worked and brought him to;
I fed him, and I coaxed him, as I thought his mother'd do;
And, when the lad got better, and the noise in his head was gone,
Morgan's men were miles away, galloping, galloping on. 

"O, I must go," he muttered; "I must be up and away!
Morgan, Morgan is waiting for me! O, what will Morgan say?"
But I heard the sound of tramping, and kept him back from the door--
The ringing sound of horses' hoofs that I had heard before. 

And on, on came the soldiers--the Michigan cavalry--
And fast they rode, and back they looked, galloping rapidly;
They had followed hard on Morgan's track; they had followed day and night;
But of Morgan and Morgan's raiders they had never caught a sight. 

And rich Ohio sat startled through all these summer days;
For strange, wild men were galloping over her broad highways;
Now here, now there, now seen, now gone, now north, now east, now west,
Through river-valleys and corn-land farms, sweeping away her best. 

A bold ride and a long ride! But they were taken at last;
They had almost reached the river by galloping hard and fast;
But the boys in blue were upon them ere ever they gained the ford,
And Morgan, Morgan the raider, laid down his terrible sword. 

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