History of Morgan's Cavalry

by Basil Wilson Duke

Passing through Corydon, we took the Salem road, and encamped some sixteen or eighteen miles from the latter place. On the morning of the 10th, we set out for Salem. Major Webber was ordered to take the advance, and let nothing stop him. He accordingly put his regiment at the head of the column, and struck out briskly. Lieutenant Welsh, of Company K, had the extreme advance with twelve men. As he neared Salem, he saw the enemy forming to receive him, and, without hesitation, dashed in among them. The party he attacked was about one hundred and fifty strong, but badly armed and perfectly raw, and he quickly routed them. He pursued as they fled, and soon, supported by Captain W.J. Jones' company, drove them pell-mell into the town. Here some two or three hundred were collected, but, as the Second Kentucky came pouring upon them, they fled in haste, scattering their guns in the streets. A small swivel, used by the younger population of Salem to celebrate Christmas and the Fourth of July, had been planted to receive us: about eighteen inches long, it was loaded to the muzzle, and mounted in the public square by being propped against a stick of fire wood. It was not fired, however, for the man deputed to perform that important duty, somewhat astounded by the sudden dash into the town, dropped the coal of fire with which he should have touched it off, and before he could get another the rebels captured the piece. The shuddering imagination refuses to contemplate the consequences had that swivel been touched off. Major Webber might have had some trouble with this force, which was being rapidly augmented, but for the promptness and vigor of his attack. He made favorable mention of Captain Cooper, of Company K, and Lieutenant West, of Company I, for gallant and judicious conduct.

A short halt was made in Salem to feed men and horses, and during that time several railroad bridges were burned. The Provost guard had great difficulty in restraining the men from pillaging, and was unsuccessful in some instances, Major Steele, of the Third Kentucky, had been appointed Provost Marshal of the division, and was assisted by picked officers and men from each of the brigades. Major Steele was a most resolute, vigilant, energetic officer, and yet he found it impossible to stop a practice which neither company nor regimental officers were able to aid him in suppressing. This disposition for wholesale plunder exceeded any thing that any of us had ever seen before. The men seemed actuated by a desire to "pay off" in the "enemy's country" all scores that the Federal army had chalked up in the South. The great cause for apprehension, which our situation might have inspired, seemed only to make them reckless. Calico was the staple article of appropriation—each man (who could get one) tied a bolt of it to his saddle, only to throw it away and get a fresh one at the first opportunity. They did not pillage with any sort of method or reason—it seemed to be a mania, senseless and purposeless. One man carried a bird-cage, with three canaries in it, for two days. Another rode with a chafing-dish, which looked like a small metallic coffin, on the pummel of his saddle, until an officer forced him to throw it away. Although the weather was intensely warm, another, still, slung seven pairs of skates around his neck, and chuckled over his acquisition. I saw very few articles of real value taken—they pillaged like boys robbing an orchard. I would not have believed that such a passion could have been developed, so ludicrously, among any body of civilized men. At Piketon, Ohio, some days later, one man broke through the guard posted at a store, rushed in (trembling with excitement and avarice), and filled his pockets with horn buttons. They would (with few exceptions) throw away their plunder after awhile, like children tired of their toys.

Leaving Salem at one or two o'clock, we marched rapidly and steadily. At nightfall we reached Vienna, on the Indianapolis and Jeffersonville railroad. General Morgan placed Ellsworth in the telegraph office here, the operator having been captured before he could give the alarm. Ellsworth soon learned all the news to be had from Louisville and Indianapolis, some of it valuable to us. General Morgan ascertained also that orders had been issued to the militia to fell timber and blockade all of the roads we would be likely to travel—our rapid marching had, hitherto, saved us this annoyance. That night we went into camp near Lexington, a little place six or seven miles from Vienna. General Morgan slept in the town with a small escort, and during the night a party of Federal cavalry entered the town and advanced as far as the house in which he slept, but retired as suddenly as they came. We moved at an early hour on the road to Paris—Colonel Smith was detached to feint against Madison, in order to hold there troops who might prove troublesome if they came out. The division moved quietly through Paris, and in the afternoon arrived in sight of Vernon. Here Colonel Smith rejoined us. A strong force was posted in Vernon, which General Morgan did not care to attack. Fortunately, there were men in the command who knew the country, and the General was enabled to carry the division around the place to the Dupont road. Skirmishers were thrown out on the road, leading into the town which we had left, and also upon the other road, while this movement was being executed. General Morgan sent a demand for the surrender of the place, which was declined, but the officer commanding asked two hours to remove the non-combatants, which reasonable request General Morgan granted. Humane considerations are never inopportune. By the time that the non-combatants were safely removed, the column had become straightened out on the new road, and the skirmishers, after they had burned a bridge or two, were withdrawn.

We encamped that night at 12 p.m., and moved next morning at 3. The fatigue of the marches, from the date of the crossing of the Ohio to the period of the close of the raid, was tremendous. We had marched hard in Kentucky, but we now averaged twenty-one hours in the saddle. Passing through Dupont a little after daylight, a new feature in the practice of appropriation was developed. A large meat packing establishment was in this town, and each man had a ham slung at his saddle. There was no difficulty at any time in supplying men and horses, in either Indiana or Ohio—forage and provisions were to be had in abundance, stop where we would. There is a custom prevailing in those States, which is of admirable assistance to soldiery, and should be encouraged—a practice of baking bread once a week in large quantities. Every house is full of it. The people were still laboring under vast apprehensions regarding us, and it was a rare thing to see an entire family remaining at home. The men met us oftener in their capacity of militia than at their houses, and the "Copperheads" and "Vallandighammers" fought harder than the others. Wherever we passed, bridges and depots, water-tanks, etc., were burned and the railroads torn up, but I knew of but one private dwelling being burned upon the entire raid, and we were fired upon from that one. The country, for the most part, was in a high state of cultivation, and magnificent crops of wheat, especially, attracted our notice on all sides.

What was peculiarly noticeable, however, to men who were fighting against these people, and just from thinned out "Dixie," was the dense population, apparently untouched by the demands of the war. The country was full, the towns were full, and the ranks of the militia were full. I am satisfied that we saw often as many as ten thousand militia in one day, posted at different points. They would frequently fight, if attacked in strong position, but could be dispersed by maneuvering. Had they come upon us as the fierce Kentucky Home-guards would have done, if collected in such numbers, we could not have forced our way through them.

In this immediate country had been recruited the regiment which burned the homes of Company F, the Mississippi company of the Second Kentucky. Colonel Grigsby was detached with his regiment to press on and burn the bridges near Versailles. He dashed into the town, where several hundred militia were collected devising the best means of defending the place, and broke up the council. He captured a large number of horses, rather better stock than had hitherto been procured in Indiana. Marching on steadily all day and the greater part of the next night, we reached a point on the Ohio and Mississippi road, twenty-five miles from Harrison, called Summansville. Here twenty-five hundred militia lay loaded into box cars. We halted to rest, and, unconscious of our presence, although we were close upon them, they moved off in the morning toward Cincinnati. Moving at 5 a.m., we reached Harrison by one o'clock of the 13th. Here General Morgan began to maneuver for the benefit of the commanding officer, at Cincinnati. He took it for granted (for it was utterly impossible moving as rapidly as we were forced to do, and in the midst of a strange and hostile population, to get positive information regarding any matter), that there was a strong force of regular troops in Cincinnati. Burnside had them not far off, and General Morgan supposed that they would, of course, be brought there. If we could get past Cincinnati safely, the danger of the expedition, he thought, would be more than half over. Here he expected to be confronted by the concentrated forces of Judah and Burnside, and he anticipated great difficulty in eluding or cutting his way through them. Once safely through this peril, his escape would be certain, unless the river remained so high that the transports could carry troops to intercept him at the upper crossings. The cavalry following in his rear could not overtake him as long as he kept in motion, and the infantry could not be transported so rapidly by rail to the eastern part of the State that it could be concentrated in sufficient strength to stop him. His object, therefore, entertaining these views and believing that the great effort to capture him would be made as he crossed the Hamilton and Dayton railroad, was to deceive the enemy as to the exact point where he would cross this road, and denude that point as much as possible of troops. He sent detachments in various directions, seeking, however, to create the impression that he was marching to Hamilton.

After two or three hours' halt at Harrison, the division moved directly toward Cincinnati, the detachment coming in in the course of that afternoon. Hoping that his previous demonstrations would induce the sending of the bulk of the troops up the road, and that if any were left at Cincinnati his subsequent threatening movements would cause them to draw into the city, remain on the defensive, and permit him to pass around it without attacking him, he sought to approach the city as nearly as possible without actually entering it and involving his command in a fight with any garrison which might be there. He has been sometimes accused of a lack of enterprise in not capturing Cincinnati. It must be remembered that Cincinnati was not the objective point of this raid; it was not undertaken to capture that city. General Morgan knew nothing, and, in the nature of things, could know nothing of the condition of affairs in the city, or whether it was weakly or strongly garrisoned.

Starting that morning from a point fifty miles distant from Cincinnati, and reaching the vicinity of the city after nightfall, he must have possessed more than human means of obtaining information, had he known these things then, and he did not have a rapping medium on his staff. Moreover, of the twenty-four hundred and sixty effectives with which he had started, he had not two thousand left. He could get fights enough to employ this force handsomely, without running into a labyrinth of streets, and among houses (each one of which might be made a fortification), with the hope that the town might be unoccupied with troops, or that it might be surrendered. Our "Copperhead friends," who could have given us the necessary information, were too loyal, or too busy dodging Burnside's Dutch corporals to come out.