History of Morgan's Cavalry

by Basil Wilson Duke

We marched during the entire night, and on the next morning, after crossing the bridge over Salt river, halted for two or three hours. Captains Taylor and Merriwether, of the Tenth Kentucky, were sent forward to capture boats to enable us to cross the Ohio, and went about their errand in good earnest. On the afternoon of that day, Captain Davis, A.A. General of the first brigade, was selected by General Morgan to undertake a service very important to the success of the expedition. He was directed to proceed, with Company D of the Second Kentucky, and Company A, of Cluke's regiment, to cross the river at Twelve Mile Island, seize boats and cross the river, keep the militia of lower Indiana employed in watching their own "firesides," chicken coops, and stables, so that the column might be comparatively free from molestation, in at least one direction, and to rejoin the division at Salem, Indiana. These two companies, the two detached at Springfield—or rather one detached there; the other marched off without leave—and Captain Salter's company detached near Columbia, to attract Burnside's attention to the country around Crab Orchard, Stanford, etc., (whither he at once hastened and did splendid service, keeping the enemy as busily employed as an ordinary-sized brigade might have done), these companies made five, in all, which were permanently detached from the division.

On the afternoon of the 7th, the column halted at Garnettsville, in Hardin county, and went into camp. It has been frequently surmised, in the North, that Morgan crossed the Ohio river to escape from Hobson. Of all the many wildly and utterly absurd ideas which have prevailed regarding the late war, this is, perhaps, the most preposterous. It is difficult to understand how, even the people whose ideas of military operations are derived from a vague rendition of the newspaper phrases of "bagging" armies, "dispositions made to capture," "deriving material advantages," when the derivers were running like scared deer, it is hard to comprehend how even such people, if they ever look upon maps, or reflect for a moment upon what they read, can receive, as correct, such assertions as the one under consideration. Hobson was from twenty-four to thirty-six hours behind us. He was pursuing us, it should be stated, with the cavalry of Judah's corps—he was, at any rate, a good fifty miles in our rear, and could learn our track only by following it closely. General Morgan, if anxious to escape Hobson, and actuated by no other motive, would have turned at Bardstown, and gone out of Kentucky through the western part of the State, where he would have encountered no hostile force that he could not have easily repulsed. It was not too late to pursue the same general route when we were at Garnettsville. Roads, traversable by artillery and excellent for cavalry, ran thence in every direction. Hobson would have had as little chance to intercept us, as a single hunter has to corner a wild horse in an open prairie. To rush across the Ohio river, as a means of escape, would have been the choice of an idiot, and yet such conduct has been ascribed to the shrewdest, most wide-awake, most far-seeing Captain (in his own chosen method of warfare), the greatest master of "cavalry strategy," that ever lived. That military men in the North should have entertained this opinion, proves, only, that in armies so vast, as that which the United States put into the field, there must necessarily be many men of very small capacity. General Morgan certainly believed that he could, with energy and care, preserve his command from capture after crossing the Ohio, but he no more believed that it would be safer, after having gained the Northern side of the river, than he believed that it was safer in Kentucky than south of the Cumberland.

The division marched from Garnettsville, shortly after midnight, and by 9 or 10 a.m. we were in Brandenburg, upon the banks of the river. Here we found Captains Samuel Taylor and Clay Merriwether, awaiting our arrival. They had succeeded in capturing two fine steamers; one had been taken at the wharf, and, manning her strongly, they cruised about the river until they found and caught the other. We were rejoined here by another officer, whose course had been somewhat eccentric, and his adventure very romantic. This was Captain Thomas Hines, of the Ninth Kentucky, then enjoying a high reputation in our command for skill, shrewdness, and exceeding gallantry, but destined to become much more widely celebrated. While the division was lying along the Cumberland in May, Captain Hines had been sent to Clinton county, with the men of the Ninth Kentucky, whose horses were especially unserviceable, to place them where, with good feeding, rest and attention, the stock might be recruited—to establish, in other words, what was technically known as a "convalescent camp," and in regimental "slang," a "dead horse camp." Captain Hines established his camp and put it into successful operation, but then sought permission to undertake more active and exciting work. He was not exactly the style of man to stay quiet at a "convalescent camp;" it would have been as difficult to keep him there, as to confine Napoleon to Elba, or force the "Wandering Jew" to remain on a cobbler's bench. He obtained from General Morgan an order to take such of his men as were best mounted, and scout "north of the Cumberland." He, therefore, selected thirty or forty of his "convalescents," whose horses were able to hobble, and crossed the river with them. Immediately exchanging his crippled horses for good, sound ones, he commenced a very pleasant and adventurous career, which lasted for some weeks. He attacked and harassed the marching columns of the enemy, and kept the smaller garrisons constantly in fear, and moved about with such celerity that there was no getting at him, occasionally interluding his other occupations by catching and burning a railroad train. He once came very near being entirely destroyed. The enemy succeeded, on one occasion, in eluding his vigilance and surprising him. While he and his men were peacefully bathing in a creek, molesting no one, they were suddenly attacked. Several were captured and the rest were dispersed, but Hines collected them, again, in a day or two.

After a while, finding Kentucky grow warm for him, and not wishing to return to the command to be remanded to the "convalescent camp," he determined to cross over into Indiana and try and stir up the "copperheads." He thought that (according to the tenor of his instructions), he had the right to do so. The order did not specify when he should return from his scout, and Indiana was certainly "north of the Cumberland." He accordingly crossed into Indiana—made his presence known to the people of the State in various ways—and penetrated as far into the interior of the State, as Seymour, at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi and Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railroads. He here effected a junction with a greatly more numerous body of militia, which induced him to retrace his steps rapidly to the Ohio (which he recrossed), and arrived at Brandenburg on the very day that we got there. We found him leaning against the side of the wharf-boat, with sleepy, melancholy look—apparently the most listless, inoffensive youth that was ever imposed upon. I do not know what explanation he made General Morgan (of the lively manner in which he had acted under his order), but it seemed to be perfectly satisfactory, and he was ordered to report to Colonel Morgan to assume the position left vacant by the wounding of Captain Franks.

Just before the crossing of the river was commenced, an unexpected fusillade was delivered, from the Indiana shore, upon the men who showed themselves in the little town and upon the boats, which was soon followed by the sharp report of a rifled-cannon. The river at this point is some eight hundred or a thousand yards wide—and the musketry produced no effect. The shell, however, from the piece of artillery pitched into a group on the river bank, scattering it, and wounding Captain Wilson, Quartermaster of the First Brigade. The mist, hanging thick over the river, had prevented us from seeing the parties who directed this firing, take position. Soon the mist lifted or was dispersed by the bright sun, and disclosed a squad of combatants posted behind one or two small houses, a clump of hay stacks, and along the brink of the river on the other side. Apparently, from the mixture of uniforms and plain clothes, which could be discovered by the glass, this force was composed of militia and some regular troops. Several shots were fired from the gun while we were getting our pieces in readiness to reply—but as soon as Lawrence opened upon them with his Parrots, a manifest disposition to retire was seen among our friends who had shown themselves so anxious to give us a warm and early welcome. They attempted to carry the piece of artillery off with them, but were induced by Lawrence to relinquish it. It was mounted upon the wheels of a wagon from which the body had been removed, and, as they moved it by hand, its transportation was difficult and tedious and very disagreeable under fire.

Leaving the piece, they fell back to a wooded ridge five or six hundred yards from the river bank and parallel with it. The Second Kentucky and Ninth Tennessee were immediately put across the river, leaving their horses on the Kentucky shore, and were formed under the bluff bank. As they ascended the bank they were greeted by a volley from the enemy which did no damage, and Colonel Ward and Major Webber at once pressed them on toward the ridge. Scarcely had the boats returned, and while yet the two regiments on the other side were moving across the open fields between the river and the ridge, when a small boat which had for some minutes been in sight, steaming rapidly down the river, began to take a part in the affair. We had watched her with great interest, and were inclined to think, from her bold unhesitating advance, that she was a river gunboat, and when she came within a mile of the town all doubts upon the subject were dispelled. Suddenly checking her way, she tossed her snub nose defiantly, like an angry beauty of the coal-pits, sidled a little toward the town, and commenced to scold. A bluish-white, funnel-shaped cloud spouted out from her left-hand bow and a shot flew at the town, and then changing front forward, she snapped a shell at the men on the other side. The ridge was soon gained by the regiments, however, the enemy not remaining to contest it, and they were sheltered by it from the gunboat's fire. I wish I were sufficiently master of nautical phraseology to do justice to this little vixen's style of fighting, but she was so unlike a horse, or a piece of light artillery, even, that I can not venture to attempt it. She was boarded up tightly with tiers of heavy oak planking, in which embrasures were cut for the guns, of which she carried three bronze twelve-pounder howitzers, apparently. Captain Byrnes transferred the two Parrots to an eminence just upon the river and above the town, and answered her fire. His solid shot skipped about her, in close proximity, and his shells burst close to her, but none seemed to touch her—although it was occasionally hard to tell whether she was hit or not. This duel was watched with the most breathless interest by the whole division; the men crowded in intense excitement upon the bluffs, near the town, to witness it, and General Morgan exhibited an emotion he rarely permitted to be seen.

Two of his best regiments were separated from him by the broad river, and were dismounted, a condition which always appeals to a cavalryman's strongest sympathies; they might at any moment, he feared, be attacked by overwhelming forces, for he did not know what was upon the other side, or how large a swarm Hines had stirred up in the hornet's nest. He himself might be attacked, if delayed too long, by the enemy that he well knew must be following his track. Independently of all considerations of immediate danger, he was impatient at delay and anxious to try his fortune in the new field he had selected. There were many with him who could appreciate his feelings. Behind us two broad States separated us from our friends—a multitude of foes, although we thought little of them, were gathering in our rear.

On the other side of the great river were our comrades needing our aid, perhaps never to be received. When we, too, were across, we would stand face to face with the hostile and angry North—an immense and infuriated population, and a soldiery out-numbering us twenty to one, would confront us. Telegraph lines, tracing the country in every direction, would tell constantly of our movements; railways would bring assailants against us from every quarter, and we would have to run this gauntlet, night and day, without rest or one moment of safety, for six hundred miles. As we looked on the river, rolling before us, we felt that it divided us from a momentous future, and we were eager to learn our fate. After an hour perhaps had elapsed, but which seemed a dozen, the gunboat backed out and steamed up the river. Her shells had nearly all burst short, doing no damage. The boats were put to work again without a moment's delay, to ferry the command over. First, the horses of the men on the other side were carried to them, affording them exquisite gratification. Although no time was lost, and the boats were of good capacity, it was nearly dark before the first brigade was all across. The gunboat returned about five p.m., accompanied by a consort, but a few shots from the Parrots, which had been kept in position, drove them away without any intermission having occurred in the ferriage. The second brigade and the artillery were gotten across by midnight. One of the boats, which was in Government employ, was burned; the other was released.

The first brigade encamped that night about six miles from the river. "A great fear" had fallen upon the inhabitants of that part of the State of Indiana. They had left their houses, with open doors and unlocked larders, and had fled to the thickets and "caves of the hills." At the houses at which I stopped, every thing was just in the condition in which the fugitive owners had left it, an hour or two before. A bright fire was blazing upon the kitchen hearth, bread half made up was in the tray, and many indications convinced us that we had interrupted preparations for supper. The chickens were strolling before the door with a confidence that was touching, but misplaced. General Morgan rode by soon afterward, and was induced to "stop all night." We completed the preparations, so suddenly abandoned, and made the best show for Indiana hospitality that was possible under the disturbing circumstances.

On the next day, the 9th, the division marched at an early hour, the second brigade in advance. At the little town of Corydon, Colonel Morgan's advance guard found a body of militia posted behind rail barricades. He charged them, but they resolutely defended their rail piles, killing and wounding several men, among the latter Lieutenant Thorpe, of Company A, Second Kentucky, Colonel Morgan's acting Adjutant, and a very fine young officer. A demonstration was made upon the flank of the enemy, by one regiment of the second brigade, and Colonel Morgan again advanced upon their front, when, not understanding such a fashion of fighting upon two or three sides at once, the militia broke and ran, with great rapidity, into the town, their progress accelerated (as they got fairly into the streets) by a shot dropped among them from one of the pieces.