“The Civil War in Kentucky” is a 10-part series recently published in my Journey Log entitled “Surrounding Fort Knox, including Southern Indiana.” It deals primarily with the Central Kentucky Theater. I present it here as a series of individual blogs for my readers. Links to the previously published chapters will be provided at the end of each blog. Look for them on each Saturday morning! (A link to the book and its Table of Contents is found here.)
In July of 1863, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan began his “Great Raid” into Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. How could it be that he made such a strategic blunder? Crossing the Ohio River and riding violently asunder through the Union Armies arrayed around him?
His Commanding Officer, Confederate General Braxton Bragg, warned him not to do it. So why did now Confederate General John Hunt Morgan cross the river at Brandenburg anyway and attack Southern Indiana? He just didn’t tell his Commanding Officer that he was going to do it!
Here is how the “Great Raid” began.
Perhaps Morgan was “antsy.” Wanted back in the saddle, even while his new wife was pregnant. Maybe it was the spectacular success of the Union Cavalry raid by Colonel Benjamin Grierson and 1,700 mounted Union soldiers ripping through Confederate lines behind Vicksburg in late April, 1863. Grierson succeeded in racing over 600 miles through Confederate territory between Union bases in Memphis and Baton Rouge, and drawing off Confederate resources defending Vicksburg from Union General Grant’s assault [this raid was the basis of the 1959 John Ford-John Wayne-William Holden film, “Horse Soldiers”].
And that was after another, unsuccessful, Union cavalry raid into the deep South led by Colonel Abel Streight and 1,700 men mounted on mules in April and May of 1863. Streight sought to cut the railroad track between Chattanooga and Atlanta. Confederate Cavalry General Nathan Bedford Forrest caught up with Streight in Cedar Bluff, Alabama, “bluffing” Streight into surrender [Streight’s flag, given by Forrest to Antoinette Polk of Columbia, Tennessee, was donated to the City of Columbia, Tennessee by my family].
There was fame in such daring raids, and Morgan was not immune to its call on him. If the Northern Cavalry could ride through the South, why couldn’t the Southern Cavalry do the same through the North? With Morgan and Duke leading the cavalry charges? How romantic. There was even a thought that once in the North, Morgan’s horsemen could sweep through Indiana and Ohio, joining up with Lee’s Army streaming north into Pennsylvania!
Bragg would have none of such nonsense, of course, especially with Rosecrans preparing to attack him with a massive Union Army from Nashville. Yes, instructed Bragg to Morgan, you can mount another raid into Kentucky to threaten Rosecrans’ lines of support, but you cannot cross the Ohio River. And you must immediately return if Rosecrans begins his advance on Murfreesboro.
Bragg never forgave Morgan for crossing the Ohio River. When he was needed in the Battle of Stones River, Morgan was off in an Ohio prison. And his small Army of perhaps 2,700 well-trained War Veterans was missing too, either captured, killed, or dispersed.
But Morgan had already put his plan into action. Early during the summer, he had sent spies to examine potential fords across the Ohio River in its upstream reaches. So in June of 1863, Morgan was confident, as he always was, and set off with around 2,500 men on what would become his “Great Raid.” Four of his brothers had transferred into his command to join him on this wartime adventure.
Morgan carried with him four cannons; two 9.5-pound shell, muzzle-loading Parrott guns [3” bore]; and two smooth bore, wrought iron, 12-pound shell howitzers [4.62” bore]. The Parrott gun was developed at the start of the war with a spiral cast iron bore, imparting a more accurate spin on the shot. A wrought iron band was wrapped around its breech for additional strength. This muzzle loading howitzer was often cast in bronze. The carriage weight with barrel for each cannon [the Parrott guns were also referred to as rifles] was about 900 pounds and they were pulled by a team of four or six horses. The South lacked the necessary industrial capacity to produce these rifled cannons, so it is possible that the Parrott guns had been captured from the North. Morgan would eventually abandon his cannon as he sought to elude capture in Ohio.
Starting out from Alexandria just north of Murfreesboro and east of Nashville, he entered into Kentucky at Albany, crossing the Cumberland River at Burkesville. Riding north through Columbia, his cavalry reached the covered bridge crossing of the Green River at Tebbs Bend in Taylor County, Kentucky.
The federals were informed of Morgan’s advance. From Cincinnati, Union General Ambrose Burnside was assembling the new Army of the Ohio to invade Eastern Tennessee. He had ample forces now in Kentucky, including a full division commanded by General Henry M. Judah. Judah positioned his second brigade, commanded by General Edward H. Hobson [a native of Greensburg, Kentucky], in Tompkinsville, Kentucky. Judah had 7,000 men spread out to catch Morgan. They were spread too thin. Judah would eventually be relieved of command as Morgan was able to slip through, unseen, to the Green River crossing at Tebbs Bend. But Hobson would continue to chase him through Kentucky and drive him out of Indiana.
Morgan had visited the Tebbs Bend covered bridge before. His men burnt it on his retreat from Kentucky on January 1, 1863, after his Christmas Raid. Union forces rebuilt the covered bridge, now protected by a Union stockade on the southern bank and garrisoned by 200 men commanded by Colonel Orlando Moore, who had built additional defensive breastworks before the stockade.
With an overwhelming force of cavalry, dismounted infantry and cannon, Morgan attacked the Tebbs Bend Stockade on July 4, 1863. He advanced eight times, each attack being repulsed by the deadly fire of Moore’s men. After losing about 90 men as casualties [of which 35 were killed; Moore lost 29, 6 killed], Morgan retreated and, swinging wide of the bridge, crossed the Green River at a nearby ford. Tebbs Bend is a uniquely beautiful landscape in Kentucky to visit. But at that time, it portended greater difficulties to come for Morgan’s men who were taking action that was unnecessary!
At Lebanon, Kentucky in Marion County, 380 Union soldiers awaited Morgan’s approach behind a quickly established line of overturned wagons and fences. The Confederates drove back the Union defenders, commanded by Lt. Colonel Charles S. Hanson, to the Railroad Depot, where a furious fight ensued. Six hours later, with parts of the town burning, Hanson surrendered. Morgan went into a rage when his youngest brother, Tom Morgan, was killed in the assault, dying in the arms of another brother, Calvin Morgan. More of Lebanon was set ablaze.
On July 6, 1863, Morgan was in Bardstown, where, after a short shootout, 25 Union cavalry men surrendered. The next day, Morgan reached the L & N Railroad to the west, where it crossed the Rolling Fork River below Muldraugh Hill. The trestle there was immediately burned. Morgan’s telegrapher, “Lightning” Ellsworth, commandeered the telegraph at nearby Bardstown Junction, hearing of a train from Nashville on its way. After robbing the train, Morgan allowed it to back up to Elizabethtown.
Ellsworth then telegraphed false sightings of Morgan’s men, confusing Union forces about his actual route and whereabouts. Riding all night, Morgan’s men looped west, and then south up over Muldraugh Hill. He did not dare cross up the Louisville and Nashville Turnpike at West Point and face the cannons in Fort Duffield!
Passing through Garnettsville, Morgan reached Brandenburg on July 8, 1863, with the Union cavalry of General Hobson not far behind in chase. In fact, Hobson was camping only 12 miles from Brandenburg during the night that Morgan’s men finished their crossing of the Ohio River. Hobson had ordered a gunboat to meet him at Rock Haven. Yet, the boat was gone when Hobson arrived. His later explanation of the decision to spend the night at Rock Haven and Garnettsville was:
“The night was very dark and my troops much fatigued … I did not deem it prudent to attack the enemy with my force alone, as at this point [Brandenburg] is capable of defense by a small force against vastly superior numbers.”
Hobson’s men would suffer even greater fatigue chasing Morgan through Indiana!
On the approach to Brandenburg the next morning, Hobson saw the smoke from the burning steamboat Alice Dean. The steamboat John T. McCombs was spared, the Captain being known to Basil Duke. Hobson sent the McCombs to secure more boats with which to cross the river. But it took his men and horses 24 hours to get across the river and follow Morgan.
The crossing of Morgan’s men into Indiana is steeped in local history and well-remembered by local residents. But its interesting details are beyond the scope of this journey log, after Morgan and Hobson galloped away out of Southern Indiana.
Fortunately, however, I can direct you to the wonderfully descriptive Meade County History Museum in Brandenburg, a center of high-quality scholarship and research in this region. Displays jampacked with meaningful objects, pictures, and documents that will bring the history of Civil War in Brandenburg into focus. And because I can’t resist the story, here are some more of the highlights that will get Morgan and Hobson across the river.
The town of old Brandenburg lay down along the Ohio River in a wide gash cut into the high rocks of the Kentucky plateau lying above it. Like at Rock Haven, 12 miles upstream, a long, broad, flat floodplain abutted the river. That’s where the steamboats tied up to ferry Morgan’s men across the river. And just downstream is where the smoldering, burning hulk of the Alice Dean lay when Hobson’s men finally got to it [in the early 1960s, a drought lowered the river enough to where part of the Alice Dean’s smokestacks were evident].
The high cliff face of the plateau rises immediately behind the town, and that’s where Morgan planted his cannon. Their commanding presence, situated like you might imagine in some old French fortress, dominated the river. And they were needed!
Before arriving in force, Morgan had sent a contingent of men to Brandenburg on Tuesday night, July 7, 1863. Concealing their uniforms, the men stormed onto the steamboat John T. McCombs when it approached the wharf in the dark hours of the early next morning. They took the boat back out into the river, sending up signals of false distress. The Alice Dean, on its maiden voyage, went to her aid and was immediately captured, both boats now commandeered to carry Morgan’s men across the river. Such serendipity is hard to plan for, much less expect. And on this account, Morgan was certainly in luck! On Wednesday morning, the full contingent of Morgan’s men reached Brandenburg.
Word, however, had crossed over to Mauckport, Indiana of the arrival of a Confederate invasion force. A steamboat there was sent downstream to Leavenworth for an old six-pound cannon. The home guards set it up opposite Brandenburg and began shelling the boats. The gun was quickly silenced by Morgan’s cannon high on the cliff and Morgan’s first men across the river drove off the home guards.
A federal gunboat then appeared upriver of Brandenburg. An artillery duel began, but the guns of the rebels had the advantage of height and drove the gunboat off to return to West Point. This was probably the gunboat that Hobson missed at Rock Haven, deciding, as a result, to spend the night camping near Garnettsville, and missing the opportunity to catch Morgan crossing the river just twelve miles away!
Here we must pause to describe two other river crossings by Confederate troops under Morgan’s command. Earlier, in June of 1863, Morgan had sent Captain Thomas Hines on a scouting trip into Kentucky with 120 cavalrymen. Reaching Elizabethtown, he plundered the town, burning a southbound train with horses that he took for his own use. Severely pressed by chasing Union forces, he decided to cross over into Indiana, “stir up the copperheads,” and escape his pursuers.
On June 17, 1863, 64 of his men crossed over the Ohio River on wooden boats at Flint Island near Derby, Indiana. Hines swam his horses across the center of the river, each man in plain clothes carrying shotguns or rifles and two revolvers.
They quickly rode 50 miles north, turning southeast toward Hardinsburg [not named for the same Kentucky Hardins] on the old Paoli Pike. The next day, crossing some of the routes set out as trails for you to travel in this book, Hines galloped towards Leavenworth, 25 miles to the south on the Ohio River. This was the old Leavenworth that sat on the terrace directly below the cliffs and directly alongside the river. Only remnants now remain of that town, destroyed by flooding in 1937.
At the mouth of the adjacent Blue River, Hines sought to recross the Ohio River back into Kentucky. Misguided by local residents, and with the Leavenworth militia alerted to his presence, Hines attempted to cross over to an island in the river just south of the mouth of the Blue River. Now he was trapped. The channel on the opposite side of the island was too deep to cross!
To make matters worse, a cannon had been taken on to the paddleboat Izetta, which happened to be at Leavenworth. It quickly steamed upriver and began shelling the rebels. Three of his men were killed, two more drowned, and 54 men surrendered. Hines, himself, escaped, probably by swimming. He rejoined Morgan’s men in Brandenburg on the same day that they arrived!
The other crossing of the Ohio River was to be by a contingent of 120 cavalry raiders dispatched by Morgan before he reached the Ohio River at Brandenburg. They were to cut the lines of communication around Louisville and confuse the Federals about Morgan’s location and direction, effectively isolating the city!
This smaller group of Morgan’s men was instructed to cross the Ohio River immediately upstream of Louisville at a ford near Twelve-Mile Island called “Grassy Flats.” It was thought that Morgan might seek to use the same route to re-enter Kentucky from Indiana, if necessary. After crossing, the raiders were to join back up with Morgan at Salem, Indiana.
They would not make it.
Union gunboats patrolled the Ohio River and captured twenty Confederates on Twelve Mile Island. Those that made it across were immediately confronted by Union forces stationed there, with nineteen more taken prisoner. The remnants that made it inland were attacked outside of New Albany on the way to Salem, with one killed, five wounded, and twenty more taken prisoner, including the Adjutant of Duke’s brigade. The remainder of the rebel force went unaccounted for. One of those who escaped was Henry Magruder, a Lebanon Junction native who would later become an infamous Confederate guerrilla, teaming up with Marcellus Jerome Clarke, also known as “Sue Mundy.”
Morgan always needed more horses, hence his reputation as the “Horse Thief.” His system was as follows: As Morgan’s columns moved forward, horsemen would be sent to range five miles out on either side, gathering up all the horses they could capture. Thus, a 10-mile rolling sweep of the countryside kept Morgan’s men in the saddle. They rode anywhere from 18 to 21 hours a day, learning to sleep somewhat on horseback. And Hobson’s men did the same, perhaps sleeping less, and slowly catching up to Morgan and his cavalry.
So horses also figure into this story.
The tragic toll on human life in the Civil War was high. By some accounts, 618,222 men were to die in the war, 258,000 from the South, 360,222 from the North. Of the more than 600,000 who died, somewhere between one-half and two-thirds would die of disease, not in combat.
But of the horses and mules that fought, at least 1,500,000 died in the war. And mounts would suffer dramatically during Morgan’s Great Raid. Hobson’s men rode over 800 miles in 21 days chasing Morgan, both horse and human on short rations and with little sleep.
Corydon lay 15 miles due north from Mauckport, Indiana, near where Morgan had crossed over. Founded in 1808, Corydon was the original capital of Indiana. By 1825, Corydon had ceded that authority to Indianapolis and was now a small town, the county seat of Harrison.
On July 9, 1863, Morgan approached Corydon with more than 2,000 men. He didn’t know it, but Vicksburg had already fallen to Grant, and Lee was in full retreat from Gettysburg. About three miles south of Corydon, he was met by about 400 of the Corydon home guards in a defensive line behind a row “of logs” and fence rails. Colonel Dick Morgan, brother of John Hunt Morgan and in command of the 15th Kentucky cavalry regiment, immediately charged the line up the Mauckport Road. The defenders violently repulsed the attackers, leaving 8 dead and 33 wounded. Morgan then brought his artillery up and, with cavalry flanking maneuvers, drove the defenders back into the center of Corydon, where they surrendered. This was the “Battle of Corydon.”
Union losses were 3 dead, 2 wounded, and 300 taken prisoner and immediately paroled. Corydon was pillaged, with Morgan spending the night in the Kintner House Hotel. While eating in the dining room, he read newspaper reports of the defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.
The next day, “Lightning” Ellsworth telegraphed Indianapolis that Morgan was coming to “burn the statehouse, sack the city, and release all the prisoners in Camp Morton [a Union prisoner of war camp].” It was a feint. Morgan formed up his men into two columns and advanced north to Salem, Indiana. The eastern column, like you, rode through the communities of Crandall and Greenville.
At Salem, railroad bridges, the Railroad Depot, and other road bridges were burned. But at that point, Morgan’s men did not head farther north toward Indianapolis. Instead, they turned back east towards Madison and the Ohio River upstream of Louisville. Hobson’s cavalry was in hot pursuit with additional Union forces sent down from Cincinnati. In a feat of daring and determination, on July 13, 1863, Morgan swung north around Cincinnati, riding 95 miles in 32 hours.
Morgan was desperate as his men raced for a crossing into West Virginia over the Ohio River at Buffington Island. It was too late.
Union General Burnside had brought General Judah’s troops by boat up to Portsmouth Ohio on Morgan’s flank. A flotilla of six gunboats, one with six 24-pound howitzers, closed off and patrolled the river. General Hobson and Colonel Wolford’s cavalry were close in pursuit and drove Morgan into the trap.
Morgan’s scouts had previously reported that the water was too shallow for gunboats to pass in July at Buffington Island, but unexpected rains in West Virginia had raised the water level. When Morgan reached the ford, he was met by fire from the gunboat USS Moose, the one with the big guns. And Judah and Hobson surged into battle at dawn.
Duke and 700 men fought until forced to surrender. Morgan and about 1,000 of his men escaped to the north. One week later, on July 26, 1863, Morgan surrendered with 364 of his men who had not otherwise escaped.
The “Great Raid” was over. John Hunt Morgan, along with Basil Duke, Thomas Hines, and other Confederate officers, were imprisoned in the Ohio State Penitentiary. In November 1863, they would escape by tunneling, eventually returning to Kentucky.
Previous Chapters
Chapter 1: The History of the Civil War in Kentucky
Chapter 2: Surrounding Sherman and Grant
Chapter 3: William Tecumseh Sherman in Kentucky
Chapter 4: Civil War Camp Nevin and Nolin Station
Chapter 5: West Point, Sherman, and Fort Duffield
Chapter 6: The Confederate Invasion of Kentucky
Chapter 7: Morgan’s Raiders During the Invasion of Kentucky and After the Battle of Perryville
Life and Landscapes Blog Site is at www.vanstockum.blog/lookin
www.facebook.com/reggievanstockum
www.instagram.com/reggievanstockum
www.vimeo.com/reggievanstockum
www.youtube.com@reggievanstockum1097
#reggievanstockum #reggiesrealm #kentuckyauthor #lifeandlandscapes #kentuckycivilwar
Copyright 2024 by RVS all rights reserved
Discover more from Life and Landscapes®
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
No Comments