In this affair, although inflicting severe loss on the enemy, Martin's command lost heavily. Fourteen commissioned officers were killed and forty privates. Eighty were so severely wounded that they could not be removed, one hundred were captured and more than that number cut off and dispersed. Colonel Martin was twice wounded.
On the morning of the 10th, General Morgan entered Lexington after a slight skirmish. He burned the government depot and stables and captured a sufficient number of horses to mount all of the dismounted men, who were then returned to their respective companies in the first and second brigades.
Moving thence to Georgetown, General Morgan sent Captain Cooper with one company to demonstrate toward Frankfort. Captain Cooper ably executed his orders, alarming and confining to the fortification around the town a much superior force of the enemy.
From Georgetown, General Morgan directed his march to Cynthiana, reaching that place on the morning of the 11th. After a sharp fight the garrison, four hundred strong, was captured. Unfortunately, a portion of the town was burned in the engagement, the enemy having occupied the houses. While the fight was going on in town, Colonel Giltner engaged a body of the enemy, fifteen hundred strong, under General Hobson. General Morgan, after the surrender of the garrison, took Cassell's battalion and, gaining Hobson's rear, compelled him also to surrender.
A large quantity of stores were captured and destroyed at Cynthiana. General Hobson was paroled and sent, under escort of Captain C.C. Morgan and two other officers, to Cincinnati, to effect, if possible, the exchange of himself and officers for certain of General Morgan's officers then in prison and, failing in that, to report as prisoner within the Confederate lines. He was not permitted to negotiate the exchange and his escort were detained for some weeks.
On the 12th, the command numbering, after all losses, and deducting details to guard prisoners and wagon train and to destroy the track and bridges for some miles of the Kentucky Central railroad, some twelve hundred men, was attacked by a force of infantry, cavalry and artillery under General Burbridge which General Morgan estimated at five thousand two hundred strong. Giltner's command had been encamped on the Paris road and was first engaged by the enemy. This brigade was almost entirely out of ammunition. The cartridges captured the day before did not fit the guns with which it was armed. General Morgan had directed Colonel Giltner to take, also, the captured guns for which this ammunition was available, but he was unwilling to abandon his better rifles and provided his brigade with neither captured guns nor cartridges. Giltner soon became hotly engaged with the advancing enemy and although the second brigade moved to his support, their united strength could oppose no effectual resistance.
General Morgan ordered the entire command to retreat upon the Augusta road and charged with the mounted reserve to cover the withdrawal. The action was very disastrous. Colonel Giltner, cut off from the Augusta, was forced to retreat upon the Leesburg road. Colonel Smith, at first, doubtful of the condition of affairs, did not immediately take part in the fight. His gallant and efficient Adjutant, Lieutenant Arthur Andrews, rode to the scene of the fight, and returning, declared that Colonel Giltner required his prompt support. Colonel Smith instantly put his brigade in motion and was soon in front of the enemy.
He says: "My brigade, gallantly led by its battalion commander, attacked the enemy with great spirit and drove him back along its entire length. The first battalion moved with more rapidity than the third, doubtless on account of the better nature of the ground it had to traverse, until it swung around almost at right angles with the line of the third battalion. Hastening to correct this defect, I rode to Colonel Bowles, but before he could obey my instructions a heavy force was massed upon him, and after a desperate contest he was forced back. I directed him to reform his command behind a stone fence on the Ruddle's Mill road, which he did promptly and checked the enemy with heavy loss. At this juncture I looked for Kirkpatrick, who had been holding his line with his usual energy and determination. I found that his battalion had been separated—two companies, commanded respectively by Captain Cantrill and Lieutenant Gardner, had been fighting hard on his left, while the other two were acting with the first battalion. Captain Kirkpatrick, severely wounded, was forced to quit the field. About the same time, gallant Bowles was driven from his second position, strong as it was, by overpowering numbers. Colonel Smith now retreated through Cynthiana, seeking to rejoin General Morgan on the Augusta road. He suddenly found himself intercepted and surrounded on three sides by the enemy, while upon the other side was the Licking river. Seeing the condition of affairs, the men became unmanageable and dashed across the river. Having been reformed on the other side, they charged a body of cavalry which then confronted them and made good their retreat, although scattered and in confusion.
Collecting all the men, who could be gathered together upon the Augusta road, General Morgan paroled his prisoners and rapidly retreated. His loss in this action was very heavy, and he was compelled to march instantly back to Virginia. Moving through Flemingsburg and West Liberty, he passed on over the mountains and reached Abingdon on the 20th of June. On this raid, great and inexcusable excesses were committed, but, except in two or three flagrant instances, they were committed by men who had never before served with General Morgan. The men of his old division and Giltner's fine brigade were rarely guilty. General Morgan had accomplished the result he had predicted, in averting the invasion of Southwestern Virginia, but at heavy cost to himself.