cultivation of a small and not very fertile plantation. Owning no
slaves, they were not rated among "the best people" of their
neighborhood; but they were honest persons of good education, fairly
well mannered and as respectable as any family could be if
uncredentialed by personal dominion over the sons and daughters of
Ham. The elder Lassiter had that severity of manner that so
frequently affirms an uncompromising devotion to duty, and conceals
a warm and affectionate disposition. He was of the iron of which
martyrs are made, but in the heart of the matrix had lurked a nobler
metal, fusible at a milder heat, yet never coloring nor softening
the hard exterior. By both heredity and environment something of
the man's inflexible character had touched the other members of the
family; the Lassiter home, though not devoid of domestic affection,
was a veritable citadel of duty, and duty--ah, duty is as cruel as
death!

When the war came on it found in the family, as in so many others in
that State, a divided sentiment; the young man was loyal to the
Union, the others savagely hostile. This unhappy division begot an
insupportable domestic bitterness, and when the offending son and
brother left home with the avowed purpose of joining the Federal
army not a hand was laid in his, not a word of farewell was spoken,
not a good wish followed him out into the world whither he went to
meet with such spirit as he might whatever fate awaited him.

Making his way to Nashville, already occupied by the Army of General
Buell, he enlisted in the first organization that he found, a
Kentucky regiment of cavalry, and in due time passed through all the
stages of military evolution from raw recruit to experienced
trooper. A right good trooper he was, too, although in his oral