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THE CIVIL WAR BATTLE IN CYNTHIANA
“Which one?” you say.
That is the correct response, I think, for there were four of them considered in two groupings. Each was important to the Civil War in Kentucky. For through Cynthiana was the way north to Cincinnati and the Union heartland beyond!
Confederate cavalryman Colonel John Hunt Morgan figures in all of them. And in all of them, he triumphed, except for the last one in June of 1864. And he would be killed in Greenville, Tennessee just months after escaping Cynthiana then.
This is the story of the First Battle of Cynthiana fought on July 17, 1862.
Why was Morgan here with 875 of his cavalrymen? What was going on elsewhere figures into his reasoning.
The brutal Battle of Shiloh had been fought in April of 1862, having drawn the Union Armies of Ulysses S. Grant and Don Carlos Buell deep into Tennessee. During the end of June 1862, the Seven Days Battles would pit Union General George B. McClellan against Confederate General Robert E. Lee around Richmond, Virginia. And throughout the summer of 1862, Confederate General Braxton Bragg would move his army around that of Union General Don Carlos Buell, outflanking him, and, with General Kirby Smith, prepare to invade Kentucky from Knoxville and Chattanooga!
So, it was a pivotal time for the newly commissioned Confederate Colonel John Hunt Morgan to lead the cavalrymen of the Second Kentucky Cavalry [CSA] into Kentucky to probe the Commonwealth in advance of what was soon to follow. And Morgan was headed to Cynthiana!
We have an important firsthand account of Morgan’s First Battle at Cynthiana. His most trusted officer was his brother-in-law, Basil Duke. Duke was only 22 when he joined Morgan as a Confederate Cavalryman. In 1861, he had married Henrietta Morgan, John Hunt Morgan’s sister who lived in the Morgan home at Gratz Park in Lexington, Kentucky. He would soon rise to Morgan’s trusted second-in-command.
Duke would live a long life, dying in 1916 at 78 years of age. He had moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where he worked as a lobbyist for the L & N Railroad, whose lines he had terrorized in the war.
Duke wrote two lengthy books about his Civil War exploits, A History of Morgan’s Cavalry, and The Civil War Reminiscences of General Basil W. Duke, C.S.A. In the former, he writes of the Battle of Cynthiana. He described Morgan’s motives in his July 1862 raid into Kentucky.
“Colonel Morgan’s objects in making this raid, viz: to obtain recruits and horses, to thoroughly equip and arm his men, to reconnoiter for the grand invasion in the fall, and to teach the enemy that we could reciprocate the compliment of invasion, were pretty well accomplished…”
On July 4, Morgan led his Second Kentucky Cavalry Regiment north out of Sparta, Tennessee, crossing the Cumberland River at Tompkinsville and entering Kentucky. His force quickly moved through Glasgow, Horse Cave, and Lebanon. Then, passing through Springfield, Harrodsburg, and Versailles, he reached Midway, located on the railroad halfway between Lexington and Frankfort. Tearing up the tracks, Morgan had his telegrapher, Elsworth “Lightning” Hopkins, confuse the Union forces by transmitting false information about Morgan’s whereabouts. It was this activity that led Abraham Lincoln to state, “They are having a stampede in Kentucky.”
Moving on to Georgetown, Morgan’s forces included a new company of recruits raised by John Breckinridge Castleman, a young lawyer from Lexington. Castleman was appointed Captain in command of Morgan’s new Company D, having escaped Kentucky with about 41 men and joining Morgan in Tennessee. Company D was increased to about 80 cavalrymen in strength and traveled with Morgan into Kentucky.
Castleman was sent by Morgan to reconnoiter the Union forces of Colonel Leonidas Metcalf in Lexington. Metcalf commanded the Seventh Kentucky Cavalry, a detachment from which had been sent to defend Cynthiana under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John J. Landram. As Morgan advanced on Cynthiana, he sent Castleman’s company south to Lexington to confuse the Union forces there as to his intentions and keep them from reinforcing Landram’s troops in Cynthiana. This Castleman did, engaging in a hot skirmish at Taylor’s Crossroads [Newtown Pike and Ironworks Pike] and then racing east, burning the railroad bridges and further hampering Metcalf’s possible movement north. Castleman’s men would rejoin Morgan in Winchester after they swept through Cynthiana.
Captain Castleman was a young man, just over 21. Many men in Morgan’s command were of similar age. Colonel Basil Duke, Morgan’s second in command, was himself barely 24 years of age. Castleman said of his young troops that they had the “Ignorance and audacity of youth.” And in his memoirs, he said, “The trip to Lexington was not without hazard, but boys think little of personal danger.”
Morgan raised another notable company of volunteers while in Georgetown. They were led by a member of the famous Kentucky Breckinridge Family, William Campbell Preston Breckinridge [W.C.P. Breckinridge]. Another young advocate of the Confederacy, he was practicing law in Lexington when he raised a cavalry company and joined Morgan in Georgetown. Breckinridge was made Captain of Company I, consisting of about 100 men.
These new recruits were amateur soldiers, not experienced military men. They would soon face their first taste of battle in the fierce fight at Cynthiana. W.C.P. Breckinridge later said that, in joining Morgan, he experienced, “having been an enlisted man, a Captain, and as having been engaged in battle, all in twenty-four hours.”
But Union forces were gathering to trap Morgan, so he determined to swing back south again. Hence his move to Cynthiana where he would cross the South Fork of the Licking River and turn towards Winchester. And by taking Cynthiana, he would confuse Union forces into thinking he was threatening Cincinnati.
Here is what Duke wrote about Morgan’s approach to Cynthiana;
“Captain Castleman was sent to destroy the bridges on the Kentucky Central Railroad between Lexington and Paris [rejoining Morgan at Winchester] …
Colonel Morgan … determined to make a dash at Cynthiana … He hoped to induce the impression that he was aiming at Cincinnati …
Between us and the town was the Licking River, crossed … by a narrow covered bridge. Just by the side of the bridge, there was a ford about waist deep … above and below, respectively, from the bridge, were fords. And to those, were sent Gano above [upstream], and the Georgians [Led by Confederate Captain F. M. Nix] below, with instructions to cross and attack the town.”
As was often his tactic, Morgan had deployed men to trap any Union forces seeking to retreat and escape.
Thus did Morgan’s men approach the town. Duke deployed two companies to the right of the covered bridge, with two more to the left. Morgan’s men fought as a mobile infantry in groups of four. When they reached the enemy, they would dismount with every fourth cavalryman, holding their horses. They rarely brandished sabers but advanced with breechloading rifles and a double brace of Colt revolvers. One company remained mounted and held in reserve to later force the bridge itself.
The first battle of Cynthiana had begun! Civil War Historian Kent Masterson Brown described it as “…one of the most vicious engagements of the war for the size of the opposing forces involved.”
The Union forces defending Cynthiana were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John J. Landram. He led a detachment of Eighteenth Kentucky Infantry, 75 men of the Seventh Kentucky cavalry and members of local Home Guards reinforced with similar Home Guard Units from northern cities. About 100 citizens were also pressed into service. All tolled, Landram had about 448 men to face Morgan’s 875 cavalrymen.
Landram also had a 12-pound brass Howitzer brought down on the railroad from Cincinnati and operated by its Police Department. Morgan had two six-pound “Mountain Howitzers,” each pulled by two horses and referred to as his “Bull Pups.”
Landram was a tough and tenacious officer. A lawyer from Warsaw, Kentucky, he was a veteran of the Mexican War. Accordingly, he arranged his forces well in houses along the river on either side of the covered bridge that he knew the enemy would seek to cross through. Then he positioned his twelve-pound cannon on the Courthouse grounds to spray shoot, sweeping the opposite bank of the river upon which the rebels had spread. The Confederates attempted to wade over the waist-high river only to be driven back by withering fire from the houses and blows delivered by the cannon. Assaults across the bridge were driven back.
You can travel to Cynthiana today and still see the layout. I recommend it. You can stand on the riverbank looking across to the city and sense the rifle and cannon fire driving you backward. Then go into town and examine an excellent diorama of Cynthiana as it existed around 1900. The diorama is housed in the Cynthiana Harrison County History Museum [you can see a video of the diorama on YouTube at my site under “Reggie Van Stockum”]. You will be able to trace the battle there in detail.
But first, let’s visit the river. The covered bridge over which this battle was centered had a long life. Initially built around 1808, it stood until 1948. It was replaced by a concrete bridge in 1949 and named for Confederate General John Hunt Morgan. You can see many photographs of the old bridge on the internet.
The new bridge enters town at the same location as the original covered bridge. But its approach angle was shifted upstream. That works for those of us of the imaginative sort because we can stand right where the old covered bridge once began to cross over. Do so now and rebuild it anew in your thinking. Here is how to get in position!
On the approach to Cynthiana from Georgetown on Business Route 27, take a left onto River Road just before you get there. That was the original road into town and still heads directly to the river before turning to now run alongside it. At the turn there is a boat ramp. Park safely and walk over to it. This is where the old covered bridge began to cross over the South Fork of the Licking River. Grays Run, the creek to your right, has been channelized and once meandered under the location of the new concrete bridge you see just upstream. Check out the diorama in the Museum. It will provide a good depiction of the Civil War scene you are now imagining.
The battle was furious but ultimately broke in favor of the Confederates due to the greater number of Morgan’s men and his successful tactic of sending two units crossing the river beyond the bridge and entering town from behind. As those forces [Nix from the north, Gano from the south] fought their way into town from the rear, they were able to capture the Union cannon at the courthouse and silenced it.
About the same time, Confederate soldiers from Company A successfully forded the river next to the bridge, tentatively holding on under fire. Morgan then ordered his Cavalry Company C, led by Captain James Bowles, to charge across the bridge. This attack was successfully accomplished only to find that the cavalrymen were now subject to fire from multiple buildings on streets coming together at the bridge’s junction. The rebels sought to reach the railroad depot farther over in town but, in the melee, they could not identify which street led to their target.
You can experience that confusion today. Cross the new bridge, get out of your car and try to decide on which route you would quickly ride, while being slammed by fire from all sides. Do you turn right along the river on Waterworks Road, or move out along Bridge Street? Maybe you need to move farther up on Main Street, facing that devastating cannon fire before turning right on Clary Alley. Your cavalrymen are dying, waiting for your orders.
Now into this terrible panorama enters one of the most colorful, bizarre characters of the war, British “Soldier of Fortune,” Colonel George St. Leger Grenfell. Having come to America to fight for the Confederacy, Robert E. Lee assigned him to Morgan.
Grenfell raced across the river, saber held high [Morgan’s men did not generally fight with swords]. He was wearing a tight-fitting red Moroccan “Fez” skullcap and a short Berber-style jacket. Reaching Morgan’s confused troops, he pointed the way with his saber towards the correct street to reach the railroad depot. The outnumbered Union troops had begun to gather at the depot in further defense. On horseback, Grenfell led the charge forward.
One of the Union Home Guards later wrote of his encounter then with Grenfell:
“As I stood … an officer on horseback, and wearing a red fez, came galloping out of a side street waving his sword and encouraging his men by shouting, ‘Give the damned Yankees Hell.’ He made a pass at me with his saber as he rode furiously by … I fired both barrels at him … while I admired his reckless daring, I despised the bombastic bravado and insolent war cry.”
Basil Duke was surprised that Grenfell survived, claiming that he and his horse “received eleven bullets.” One bullet had passed through his skullcap, causing Duke to report that, “It fitted so tight upon his head that I previously thought that a ball could not go through it without blowing his brains out.” Most of the rebel casualties were experienced in this assault across the river and drive to the depot.
George St. Leger Grenfell later said of his charge into the streets of Cynthiana, “It was the hottest scrimmage I was ever in; I was hit four times!”
One of Morgan’s men, John M. Porter reported:
“It was a hard fought engagement … The scenes here were as horrible as any I had at that time ever witnessed. Most of the enemy killed were in the upper rooms, and shot through windows as they were in the act of firing on our men. They lay in every shape, some wounded and others dead.”
The costly price of urban, house to house, warfare would again haunt Confederate leader Basil Duke when he attacked Augusta, Kentucky on September 27, 1862 with a 450-man detachment of Morgan’s regiment. It was during the early successful days of the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. Duke’s men were to cross the Ohio River at Augusta and threaten Cincinnati directly. But the resistance in Augusta was so fearsome that it prevented Duke from Crossing.
After the Battle of Richmond in late August 1862, Confederate General Henry Heth moved almost 8,000 troops into Northern Kentucky to approach Cincinnati. The Third Division of Confederate General Thomas J. Churchill moved through Harrison County.
Severely outnumbered and pressed by the enemy from three sides, Landrum rallied his troops at the railroad depot. He had thirty men with him. Here, Landram was shot in the ankle.
Leaving the depot, Landram and his men escaped along the railroad tracks to make a last stand at the Rankin Hotel. That building is still standing, as are the tracks. You, too, can race along the escape route to the Rankin House under fire. It still stands to remind you of the desperate circumstance Landram’s men were in [the depot was long ago demolished].
Caught on the tracks, Landram faced a Confederate cavalryman and a demand that he cease resistance. He blasted his way through, proclaiming, “I never surrender!”
At the hotel, W.C.P. Breckinridge’s men of Confederate Company I flushed out the Union men who then fled up Magee Hill Road to Ruddles Mill Road. There, they surrendered.
Landram escaped on horseback and, after being pursued toward Ruddles Mill for ten miles, was able to reach Paris that evening with news of the fall of Cynthiana. Basil Duke stated, “The Colonel was riding a superb horse, which attracted attention to him, but probably saved him.”
Thus ended the First Battle of Cynthiana. The battle had begun at 3:00 PM on Thursday, July 17, 1862. It was over after ninety minutes of furious fighting.
Landram’s forces lost twenty killed. Ten of them were Union Home Guards. Thirty-four men were wounded. Morgan captured 420 prisoners, 100 of which were civilians and 70 Home Guards. In addition to the twelve-pound cannon, they captured 300 horses.
Morgan’s losses were significant but disputed. He claimed only eight were killed and 29 wounded. Landram alleged that 13 more rebel bodies had been found floating in the river. Landram’s surgeon reported 19 rebel dead. His Commanding Officer, Brig. Gen. G. Clay Smith, listed Confederate losses at 29 killed, thirty wounded, and eighteen prisoners in his official report.
Apparently, no women or children were injured in the battle. And, as was the custom at this stage of the war, Morgan “paroled” his prisoners after they gave their word not to take up arms or join in military action again. Such promises, however, were hard to enforce.
The next day, Morgan rode out with his men to Paris, Kentucky, where they were greeted by the city leaders with an offer of surrender. With Union forces headed up from Lexington to intercept him, on the next day, Morgan began his return to Tennessee through Winchester, Richmond, Crab Orchard, and Somerset. By July 28, 1862, he had ridden and fought over 1,000 miles in 24 days. In his report, Morgan stated:
“I left Knoxville on the 4th day of this month, with about nine hundred men, and returned to Livingston on the 28th inst. With nearly twelve hundred, having been absent just twenty-four days, during which time I have traveled over a thousand miles, captured seventeen towns, destroyed all the Government supplies and arms in them, dispersed about fifteen hundred Home-guards and paroled nearly twelve hundred regular troops. I lost in killed, wounded and missing of the number that I carried into Kentucky, about ninety.”
There was genuine support for the Confederate cause in Kentucky. But it was not widespread enough to be relied upon to swell the ranks of any invading Confederate Army. In a prescient statement that would affect the failure of Confederate Generals Kirby Smith and Braxton Bragg to take Kentucky, Morgan said the following during his Parole Ceremony in Cynthiana:
“I was led to believe that the men of Kentucky would join me, but I find myself surely mistaken. I will parole you and you can go home, and if you can’t fight for me, I hope you won’t fight against me.”
Three months later, two great Confederate armies would sweep through the Commonwealth!
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