History of Morgan's Cavalry

by Basil Wilson Duke

General Bragg refused him permission to make the raid as he desired to make it and ordered him to confine himself to Kentucky. I was not present at the interview between them, but General Morgan told me that General Bragg had ordered him to operate in Kentucky, and further stated that he intended, notwithstanding his orders, to cross the Ohio. I do not mean to justify his disobedience of orders, but simply to narrate the facts as I learned them, and to explain General Morgan's ideas regarding the movement, which were definite and fixed. This expedition into the Northwestern States had long been a favorite idea with him and was but the practical development of his theory of the proper way to make war, to-wit: by going deep into the country of the enemy. He had for several weeks foreseen the necessity of some such diversion in General Bragg's behalf, and believed that the period for the accomplishment of his great desire was at hand.

He had ordered me, three weeks previously, to send intelligent men to examine the fords of the upper Ohio—that at Buffington among them—and it is a fact, of which others, as well as myself, are cognizant, that he intended—long before he crossed the Ohio—to make no effort to recross it, except at some of these fords, unless he found it more expedient, when he reached that region, to join General Lee, if the latter should still be in Pennsylvania.

Never had I been so impressed with General Morgan's remarkable genius—his wonderful faculty of anticipating the exact effect his action would have upon all other men and of calculating their action—his singular power of arriving at a correct estimate of the nature and capacities of a country, which he knew only by maps and the most general description—and the perfect accuracy with which he could foretell the main incidents of a march and campaign—as when he would briefly sketch his plan of that raid. All who heard him felt that he was right in the main, and although some of us were filled with a grave apprehension, from the first, we felt an inconsistent confidence when listening to him. He did not disguise from himself the great dangers he encountered, but was sanguine of success. As it turned out, only the unprecedented rise in the Ohio caused his capture—he had avoided or had cut his way through all other dangers.

On the 11th of June, the division marched from Alexandria to the Cumberland and crossed the river not far from the little town of Rome. General Morgan desired to attack the Federal force stationed at Carthage, and strongly fortified. General Bragg had authorized him to do so.

The division encamped two or three miles from the northern bank of the river, and not far from the turnpike which runs from Carthage to Hartsville. Information had been received that the mail passed on this road twice or three times a week, guarded by a small escort, and that comfortably lined sutlers' wagons sometimes accompanied the cavalcade for the benefit of the protection the escort afforded. Colonel Ward was sent, with two or three companies of his regiment, to a point on the pike some eight miles from Carthage, and two or three from our encampment. He reached it just before sundown, and shortly afterward the mail train, accompanied by several sutlers' wagons, and under charge of an escort eighty or a hundred strong, came by, no one apparently suspecting the slightest danger, and all keeping careless watch. When the procession came opposite to where Colonel Ward had posted his men (some seventy yards from the road), the Colonel gave the order to fire in a loud voice. At the unexpected command, which so suddenly indicated danger, mail-carriers, sutlers, and guard halted in amazement, and when the answering volley broke upon them, they went in every direction in the wildest confusion. Not a shot was fired in return, but the escort manifested plainly that it felt a very inferior degree of interest in the integrity of postal affairs.

Few prisoners were taken, but the mail and the wagons were secured. In one of the latter, a corpulent sutler was found, wedged in a corner, and much alarmed. He was past speaking when drawn out, but faintly signed that a bottle he had in his pocket should be placed to his lips.

That evening a staff officer arrived from General Bragg with orders to General Morgan. He was instructed to make no attack upon Carthage, but to march as rapidly as possible to Monticello, and strive to intercept a Federal raiding party which had broken into East Tennessee, under Brigadier General Saunders, and was threatening Knoxville. Upon the next morning, consequently, we recrossed the Cumberland and marched in the direction ordered. After passing through Gainesboro', we got into a very rugged country and upon the very worst roads. At Livingston we were overtaken by a tremendous rain, which lasted for two or three days, and rendered the road almost impassable for artillery. This retarded our march very greatly, and we arrived at Albany three days later than we would otherwise have done, to learn that the enemy had already passed out of East Tennessee by way of Jamestown.

The second brigade was encamped in Turkey-neck Bend of the Cumberland river, some fifteen miles in direct line from Burkesville. The first brigade was encamped along the river, from a point opposite Burkesville to Irish Bottom. The division remained here for three or four days, awaiting the return of General Morgan, who had left us at the recrossing of the Cumberland to go to McMinnville and hurry forward some supplies and ammunition. These stores were hauled to our camp in six wagons, which had nearly not gotten to us at all. The heavy rains which had so retarded the march of the division to Albany, had made the roads which these wagons had traveled perfect quagmires. When they reached the Obie and Wolf rivers, which are six miles apart at the points where the road from Sparta to Monticello crosses them, they met with a very discouraging sight. These little rushing mountain streams were much swollen and too deep for any kind of fording. General Morgan instructed his Acting Inspector, Captain D.R. Williams, an officer of great energy, to have the wagons taken to pieces, and stowed, with their contents, in canoes, and so ferried across. In this manner, all were crossed in a single night. The mules were made to swim.

On the 2nd of July, the crossing of the Cumberland began, the first brigade crossing at Burkesville and Scott's ferry, two miles above, and the second crossing at Turkey-neck Bend. The river was out of its banks, and running like a mill-race. The first brigade had, with which to cross the men and their accouterments, and artillery, only two crazy little flats, that seemed ready to sink under the weight of a single man, and two or three canoes. Colonel Johnson was not even so well provided. The horses were made to swim.