We reached the environs of Cincinnati about ten o'clock at night, and were not clear of them until after daybreak. My brigade was marching in the rear, and the guides were with General Morgan in the front. The continual straggling of some companies in the rear of Johnson's brigade caused me to become separated from the remainder of the column by a wide gap, and I was for some time entirely ignorant of what direction I should take. The night was pitch-dark, and I was compelled to light torches and seek the track of the column by the foam dropped from the mouths of the horses and the dust kicked up by their feet. At every halt which this groping search necessitated, scores of tired men would fall asleep and drop out of their saddles. Daylight appeared after we had crossed all of the principal suburban roads, and were near the Little Miami Railroad. I never welcomed the fresh, invigorating air of morning more gratefully. That afternoon we reached Williamsburg, twenty-eight miles east of Cincinnati.
The Ohio militia were more numerous and aggressive than those of Indiana. We had frequent skirmishes with them daily, and although hundreds were captured, they resumed operations as soon as they were turned loose. What excited in us more astonishment than all else we saw were the crowds of able-bodied men. The contrast with the South, drained of adult males to recruit her armies, was striking, and suggestive of anything but confidence on our part in the result of the struggle.
At Piketon we learned that Vicksburg had fallen, and that General Lee, having been repulsed at Gettysburg, had retreated across the Potomac. Under the circumstances this information was peculiarly disheartening. As we approached Pomeroy the militia began to embarrass our march by felling trees and erecting barricades across the roads. In passing near that town we were assailed by regular troops,—as we called the volunteers, in contradistinction to the militia,—and forced a passage only by some sharp fighting. At 1 p.m. on the 18th we reached Chester, eighteen miles from Buffington's Island. A halt here of nearly two hours proved disastrous, as it caused us to arrive at the river after nightfall, and delayed any attempt at crossing until the next morning. Morgan thoroughly appreciated the importance of crossing the river at once, but it was impossible. The darkness was intense, we were ignorant of the ford and without guides, and were encumbered with nearly two hundred wounded, whom we were unwilling to abandon. By instruction I placed the 5th and 6th Kentucky in position to attack, as soon as day broke, an earthwork commanding the ford, and which we learned was mounted with two guns and manned by three hundred infantry. At dawn I moved upon the work, and found it had been evacuated and the guns thrown over the bluff. Pressing on a few hundred yards to reconnoiter the Pomeroy road, we suddenly encountered the enemy. It proved to be General Judah's advance. The 5th and 6th Kentucky instantly attacked and dispersed it, taking a piece of artillery and forty or fifty prisoners, inflicting some loss in killed and wounded.
The position in which we found ourselves, now that we had light enough to examine the ground, was anything but favorable. The valley we had entered, about a mile long and perhaps eight hundred yards wide at its southern extremity,—the river running here nearly due north and south,—gradually narrows, as the ridge which is its western boundary closely approaches the river-bank, until it becomes a mere ravine. The Chester road enters the valley at a point about equidistant from either end. As the 5th Kentucky fell back that it might be aligned on the 6th Kentucky, across the southern end of the valley, into which Judah's whole force was now pouring, it was charged by the 8th and 9th Michigan and a detachment of the 5th Indiana. A part of the 5th Kentucky was cut off by this charge, the gun we had taken was recaptured, and our Parrotts also fell into the hands of the enemy. They were so clogged with dust, however, as to be almost unserviceable, and their ammunition was expended. Bringing up a part of the 2d Kentucky, I succeeded in checking and driving back the regiments that first bore down on us, but they were quickly reinforced and immediately returned to the attack. In the mean time Colonel Johnson's videttes on the Chester road had been driven in, and the cavalry under Hobson, which had followed us throughout our long march, deployed on the ridge, and attacked on that side. I sent a courier to General Morgan, advising that he retreat up the river and out of the valley with all the men he could extricate, while Colonel Johnson and I, with the troops already engaged, would endeavor to hold the enemy in check. The action was soon hot from both directions, and the gunboats, steaming up the river abreast of us, commenced shelling vigorously. We were now between three assailants. A sharp artillery fire was opened by each, and the peculiar formation we were compelled to adopt exposed us to a severe cross-fire of small arms.
We were in no condition to make a successful or energetic resistance. The men were worn out and demoralized by the tremendous march, and the fatigue and lack of sleep for the ten days that had elapsed since they had crossed the Ohio. Having had no opportunity to replenish their cartridge-boxes, they were almost destitute of ammunition, and after firing two or three rounds were virtually unarmed. To this fact is attributable the very small loss our assailants sustained. Broken down as we were, if we had been supplied with cartridges we could have piled the ground with Judah's men as they advanced over the open plain into the valley. As the line, seeking to cover the withdrawal of the troops taken off by General Morgan, was rolled back by the repeated charges of the enemy, the stragglers were rushing wildly about the valley, with bolts of calico streaming from their saddles, and changing direction with every shrieking shell. When the rear-guard neared the northern end of the valley,—out of which General Morgan with the greater part of the command had now passed,—and perceived that the only avenue of escape was through a narrow gorge, a general rush was made for it. The Michigan regiments dashed into the mass of fugitives, and the gunboats swept the narrow pass with grape. All order lost in a wild tide of flight.
About seven hundred were captured here, and perhaps a hundred and twenty killed and wounded. Probably a thousand men got out with General Morgan. Of these some three hundred succeeded in swimming the river at a point twenty miles above Buffington, while many were drowned in the attempt. The arrival of the gunboats prevented others from crossing. General Morgan had gotten nearly over, when, seeing that the bulk of his command must remain on the Ohio side, he returned. For six more days Morgan taxed energy and ingenuity to the utmost to escape the toils. Absolutely exhausted, he surrendered near the Pennsylvania line, on the 26th day of July, with three hundred and sixty-four men.
The expedition was of immediate benefit, since a part of the forces that would otherwise have harassed Bragg's retreat and swollen Rosecrans's muster-roll at Chickamauga were carried by the pursuit of Morgan so far northward that they were kept from participating in that battle.
But Morgan's cavalry was almost destroyed, and his prestige impaired. Much the larger number of the captured men lingered in the Northern prisons until the close of the war. That portion of his command which had remained in Tennessee became disintegrated; the men either were incorporated in other organizations, or, attracted by the fascinations of irregular warfare, were virtually lost to the service. Morgan, after four or five months' imprisonment in the Ohio penitentiary, effected an escape which has scarcely a parallel for ingenuity and daring. He was received in the South enthusiastically. The authorities at Richmond seemed at first to share the popular sympathy and admiration. But it soon became apparent that his infraction of discipline in crossing the Ohio was not forgiven. Placed for a short time in practical command of the Department of Southwestern Virginia, he was given inadequate means for its defense, and bound with instructions which accorded neither with his temperament nor with his situation. The troops he commanded were not, like his old riders, accustomed to his methods, confident in his genius, and devoted to his fortunes. He attempted aggressive operations with his former energy and self-reliance, but not with his former success. He drove out of West Virginia two invading columns, and then made an incursion into the heart of Kentucky—known as his last Kentucky raid—in the hope of anticipating and deterring a movement into his own territory. Very successful at first, this raid ended, too, in disaster. After capturing and dispersing Federal forces in the aggregate much larger than his own, he encountered at Cynthiana a vastly superior force, and was defeated. Two months later, September 4, 1864, he was killed at Greeneville, Tennessee, while advancing to attack the Federal detachments stationed in front of Knoxville.[5]
[5] E.W. Doran of Greeneville, Tenn., gives the following particulars of General Morgan's death: