From The Mountains.
Capture of the Notorious Bushwhacking Horse Thief, Ned Lynch.
January 23, 1863
Beverly, West Virginia,
January 14, 1863.
Editors Intelligencer:
The Kelley Guards have added another laurel to their crown; but to speak more joyously, they have, within the past ten days, added a "pack of laurels to their venerable foreheads."
On Tuesday, December 30th, Sergeant Hess, with ten men, was sent out on a scout to Cheat Mountain Summit, twenty miles from here, and dispersed a squad of Imboden's men, capturing three and losing none.
On Monday, the 12th inst., Capt. H. H. Hagans took 30 men, and scouted over in the direction of the Dry Fork. When within three or four miles of their destination, they discovered a squad of rebels, when "charge" was yelled out by Captain Hagans, and away they went pursuers and pursued, pell mell over logs, rocks, creeks, mud-holes, &c., and very shortly brought up the notorious horse thief Ned Lynch, and his companion Johnson. Lynch has stolen more horses than any man living; to speak plain, and a title on the Macbethian style, he is the best of horse-thieves, and do not know but that if I were to give Shak[e]speare's original line, that it would be far from the mark.
Lynch, not long since, told one of our men who played secesh to him, that he could "make more money in the horse business than at anything else," and thereupon exhibited three or four thousand dollars in Confederate bonds.
It is to be hoped that when you get him down to the Smoky City, that you will keep a better guard over him than you did over Swindler and Dering. Hold him fast! If you can't do it any other way, tie a rope around his neck and hang him out the 3d story window of the brick building just opposite the postoffice.
The above makes 62 prisoners that the Lancers have taken since their advent into West Virginia; and now that we have got our new State we will work the harder.
Yours truly,
N. N. H.
Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood: January 1863