Permit me again, sir, to urge earnestly, that the investigation, which can alone remove the difficulties which I now experience, shall be immediately ordered.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
John H. Morgan.
To Hon. James A. Seddon, Secretary of War.
On the 28th or 29th of August, General Morgan left Abingdon, and taking command of the troops at Jonesboro' on the 31st, immediately prepared to move against the enemy. Our forces had again been driven away from their positions at Bull's Gap and Rogersville, and had fallen back to Jonesboro'. After two or three days delay for refitment, etc., General Morgan marched from Jonesboro' with the intention of attacking the enemy at Bull's Gap. If he could drive them from that position, by a sudden and rapidly executed movement, he would, in all probability, cut off that force at Rogersville and either force it to surrender or compel it to retreat into Kentucky. In the latter event, the enemy's strength would be so much reduced, that all of East Tennessee, as far down as Knoxville, would be for some time, in possession of the Confederates. General Morgan's strength, including the portions of General Vaughan's brigade, was about sixteen hundred and two pieces of artillery. The men were badly armed and equipped and had been much discouraged by their late reverses, but reanimated by the presence of their leader, whom they loved all the more as misfortunes befell them, they were anxious for battle.
A small frame house upon the left side of the road leading from Jonesboro' to Greenville, was often pointed out to me subsequently, as the spot where General Morgan received (as he rode past the column), the last cheer ever given him by his men. Reaching Greenville about 4 p.m. on the 3rd of September, he determined to encamp there for the night and move on Bull's Gap the next day. The troops were stationed on all sides of the place, and he made his headquarters in town, at the house of Mrs. Williams. The younger Mrs. Williams left Greenville, riding in the direction of Bull's Gap at the first rumors of the approach of our forces, to give, we have always believed, the alarm to the enemy.
The Tennesseeans of Vaughan's brigade (under Colonel Bradford), were encamped on the Bull's Gap road, and were instructed to picket that road and the roads to the left. Clark's battalion of Colonel Smith's brigade and the artillery were encamped on the Jonesboro' road, about five hundred yards from the town. The remainder of Colonel Smith's brigade was encamped on the Rogersville road. Colonel Giltner's command was also stationed in this quarter, and the two picketed all the roads to the front and right flank. The town, had all instructions been obeyed and the pickets judiciously placed, would have been perfectly protected. It has been stated, I know not how correctly, that the enemy gained admittance to the town, unchallenged, through an unaccountable error in the picketing of the roads on the left. According to this account, the enemy, who left Bull's Gap before midnight, quitted the main road at Blue Springs, equi-distant from Greenville and Bull's Gap, and marched by the Warrensburg road, until within one mile and a half of the town.
At this point, a by-road leads from the Warrensburg to the Newport road. The pickets on the Warrensburg road were not stationed in sight of this point, while on the Newport road the base of the pickets was beyond the point where the by-road enters, and there were no rear videttes between the base and town. The enemy (it is stated), took this little by-road, and turning off in front of one picket, came in behind the other. At any rate, about daylight, a body perhaps of one hundred cavalry dashed into Greenville and were followed in a short time by Gillem's whole force. It was the party that came first which killed General Morgan. His fate, however, is still involved in mystery. Major Gassett, of his staff, states that they left the house together and sought to escape, but found every street guarded. They took refuge once in the open cellar of a house, expecting that some change in the disposition of the Federal forces would leave an avenue for escape, or that they would be rescued by a charge from some of the troops at the camps. They were discovered and pointed out by a Union woman. Gassett succeeded in effecting his escape. General Morgan made his way back to the garden of Mrs. Williams house. Lieutenant X. Hawkins, a fearless young officer, charged into the town with fifteen men and strove to reach the point where he supposed the General to be, but he was forced back. General Morgan was killed in the garden—shot through the heart. It is not known whether he surrendered or was offering resistance.
His friends have always believed that he was murdered after his surrender. Certain representations by the parties who killed him, their ruffianly character, and the brutality with which they treated his body, induced the belief; and it was notorious that his death, if again captured, had been sworn. His slayers broke down the paling around the garden, dragged him through, and, while he was tossing his arms in his dying agonies, threw him across a mule, and paraded his body about the town, shouting and screaming in savage exultation. No effort was made by any one except Lieutenant Hawkins to accomplish his rescue. The three commands demoralized by General Morgan's death, became separated and were easily driven away. The men of his old command declared their desire to fight and avenge him on the spot, but a retreat was insisted upon.
Thus, on the 4th of September, 1864, in this little village of East Tennessee, fell the greatest partisan leader the world ever saw, unless it were the Irishman, Sarsfield. But not only was the light of genius extinguished then, and a heroic spirit lost to earth—as kindly and as noble a heart as was ever warmed by the constant presence of generous emotions was stilled by a ruffian's bullet.
As the event is described, the feelings it excited come back almost as fresh and poignant as at the time. How hard it was to realize that his time, too, had come—that so much life had been quenched. Every trait of the man we almost worshiped, recollections of incidents which showed his superb nature, crowd now, as they crowded then, upon the mind.