Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

By the 24th of December Morgan had reached up into Barren County, five miles from Glasgow and ninety miles from the place where he had started. Two companies were sent forward to secure information of conditions at Glasgow. One of these was commanded by Captain William E. Jones of the 9th Kentucky Cavalry. About this time the advance guard of a battalion of the 2d Michigan Cavalry entered the place upon the opposite side from that which Jones had come in. As both parties were looking for trouble, it did not take long to bring on a fight, and they met about the center of the town. Jones was mortally wounded, and William Webb, of Breckinridge’s regiment, one of the best men in Kentucky, fell in the conflict. In the melee Lieutenant Samuel O. Peyton, of the 2d Kentucky, was wounded, having been shot in the arm and hip. His foes, gathering around him, demanded his surrender. He fired his revolver, killing one of his assailants, grappled with the second, threw him to the ground and stabbed him to death with his knife. The Federals were not expecting such a reception or such resistance, and so within a very few minutes, they were driven away. Twenty-two prisoners, including a captain, were captured and paroled. The gage of battle had been thrown down and conflict must be expected at any moment. The command was in a territory where both garrisons and obstructing and opposing forces would be vigilant and aggressive, and where every energy of the Federal authorities was put under stern requisition to harass and delay or destroy this Confederate force, which on mischief and devastation bent, in the face of winter’s defiance, and far from supports, was offering battle’s wage to those who stood in their pathway of ruin and destruction.

The roads had now become better. There was a turnpike leading from Glasgow toward Louisville. Mysteriously Morgan’s coming had been known to the citizens. The entire length of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad was thickly studded with stockades, and every bridge of any importance had a full guard, and towns like Elizabethtown and Munfordsville, Bowling Green and Shepherdsville were all protected by strong garrisons. The great importance of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad as a means of feeding and supplying the Federal Army at Nashville and below, demanded that it should be fully and thoroughly defended, and no small force could hope to avail against this thorough preparation on the part of the Federals for the guarding of this essential highway.

Captain Quirk, in command of the advance guard and the scouts, had not gone very far until he found a battery across the road and supports on either side. An impetuous attack was the answer to this challenge, and it did not require very long to brush this obstruction out of the Confederate path. Johnson’s regiment had been sent in the direction of Munfordsville to threaten that place, but General Morgan turned his forces south and east of the Green River, which was not forded without much difficulty. The banks were steep and muddy and the water high enough to give great inconvenience. As there was a long railroad bridge at Munfordsville, a strong Federal garrison had been gathered at that point to defend it. His force was not large enough to assault the earthworks protecting this structure. General Morgan had determined to destroy the trestles at Muldraugh Hill, six miles north of Elizabethtown. The damage there would more than equal any he could inflict at Munfordsville. It was of importance that he should create upon the minds of the Federals the impression that he would assail the garrison at Munfordsville and force them to concentrate there, when his men should reach the Louisville & Nashville Railroad between Munfordsville and Elizabethtown, and bridges and culverts torn up, there need not be any particular worry about the Federal forces in the rear. Infantry would have to be moved along the railroad and they would stand a slight chance to catch Morgan and his horsemen on lines removed from the thoroughfare. Little sleep was allowed that night. On the morrow General Morgan had mapped out great work. He intended to take the stockades at Bacon’s Creek and Nolin River and destroy the bridges there. During the night a tremendous rain had fallen, and all day it still kept coming down in torrents. The cannon and caissons in the mud and slush made slow progress and prevented very rapid movement. A regiment had been despatched to Bacon’s Creek bridge, and at eleven o’clock the cannonading there was distinctly heard. It was necessary to reduce the stockade and capture the Federal garrison at that point in order to prevent the Federals from sending new troops to Nashville.

The force sent thither not returning delayed the march, and it was three o’clock before it got under way. General Morgan took the reinforcements that had arrived from the feint toward Munfordsville, and he went over with these to learn what was the cause of the detention at Bacon’s Creek. Upon his arrival, peremptory demand was made by him for surrender, and the Federal forces under Captain James of the 19th Illinois promptly complied. The stockade was immediately burned and the torch applied to the trestle. The garrison at Nolin was less disposed to fight than those at Bacon’s Creek, and these laid down their arms without resistance. The stockade and bridge were consigned to the flames. Great fires were built along the tracks of the Louisville & Nashville for several miles, the iron rails, torn from the ties, were placed upon these and were warped and bent so as to be unfit for use until carried to a rolling mill.

On the morning of December 27th General Morgan learned of the presence of a considerable force at Elizabethtown, and moved over to that place. When within a short distance of the town a most ludicrous communication was sent out under a flag of truce. It ran somewhat like this: “Elizabethtown, Kentucky, December 27th, 1862. To the commander of the Confederate forces: I have you surrounded and will compel you to surrender. I am, sir, your obedient servant, H. S. Smith, Commander United States Forces.” General Morgan smiled and chuckled. He informed the bearer of this extraordinary despatch that he trusted he would convey the impression to his commander that the positions were reversed, that it was the Federal forces that were to surrender and not the Confederates, and he requested their immediate capitulation, to which he received the rather unique reply that “it was the business of a United States officer to fight and not to surrender.” As nothing but a fight would satisfy the six hundred and seventy men under command of Colonel Smith, General Morgan prepared to give him what he wanted. Surrounding the town, skirmishers were thrown forward and the position of the enemy developed. He had taken position in brick houses on the outside of the town and resolved to have a street fight. The Federals had no artillery, and the Confederates had seven pieces. It was a very unequal contest. The Confederates marched boldly in. They had seen street fighting before. Colonel Cluke and Lieutenant Colonel Stoner, who later at Mount Sterling in February and March were to win additional fame, entered the town at the head of their men. A few well-directed shells convinced the Federals of the folly of resistance. The gallant Federal colonel still refused to surrender, but his men, rushing out, displayed the white flag, and left him to his fate. Six hundred and fifty-two prisoners, including twenty-five officers, were the result of this fight.

The great prize for which the Confederates were contending was yet six miles away. Two mighty trestles, one nine hundred and one a thousand feet long and ninety feet high, were the means by which the Louisville & Nashville Railroad climbed Muldraugh’s Hill and debauched on the Elizabethtown side of that small mountain range. The bridges and trestles heretofore destroyed were small in comparison to these two immense structures. Both of these trestles were defended by garrisons, and both were well fortified. These troops had been especially ordered to fight to the last ditch. Seven hundred men had been placed to guard these giant viaducts. They were the highest and most valuable on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, and the Confederates had never been able to reach them before. Full stores had been collected at this point. On this expedition Captains Palmer and Corbett handled the artillery with consummate skill and bravery. Their well-directed shots in a brief while brought both garrisons to terms. The flames ascending high into the air told the story of the victory and triumph of the Confederate forces, and the columns of smoke lifting their shadows up toward the heavens proclaimed to the pursuers that the dreaded calamity had overtaken the all-important trestles which meant so much to the railway, and that they had gone down before the avenging hand of enemies. Small forces were sent out a few miles north toward Shepherdsville and destroyed some unimportant structures. General Morgan had wrecked the road now for something like fifty miles. Nothing inflammable had escaped the touch of his destructive torch. Having accomplished all they had intended to do, with Federal forces south and southeast and others in the path in every direction, he now faced the problem of safely escaping from these foes which beleaguered and beset him on every side. He had now reached one hundred and seventy miles into the enemy’s territory. He had destroyed twenty-three hundred feet of bridging and put the railroad out of commission for many weeks.

In cavalry experiences it is sometimes easier to get in than to get out. The whole country south and east of Morgan was aroused. The Federal commanders at Washington and Nashville were beginning to question with vehement pertinacity how Morgan had been allowed to ride so far and do so much damage without serious interruption. It was true that the defenders at Bacon’s Creek were not very numerous, that those at Nolin were less so, and that those at Elizabethtown and the Muldraugh trestles had no chance against the well-directed artillery of the Confederates, backed by thirty-five hundred cavalry; but up in Louisville, at Nashville, at Washington, Morgan seemed to be going where he pleased and doing what he pleased. At these centers, so far removed from the scene of his action, it appeared that those who were opposing him, or following, were neither diligent nor brave. The men at Washington, Louisville, or Nashville were not marching in the cold, or riding through the mud and the rain. They could not take in the surroundings of the men who were at work on the spot, and so they became both inquisitive and critical. General Morgan, however, was not underrating the efforts of his foes to minimize the damage he might do or to prevent his escape. Great soldier as he was, he foresaw what he must face and overcome when he turned his face southward and undertook to break through the cordon his enemies were establishing around him. He had before him for outlet a territory sixty miles wide, filled with numerous highways. Nearly all these were merely country roads, which when cut by his artillery and churned by the sixteen thousand feet of the horses his men were riding, would be only streams of mire.

MAP SHOWING APPROXIMATELY MORGAN’S CHRISTMAS RAID

Mud and slush would face him along any line he should march except one, and that was through Bardstown and Springfield, Lebanon and Campbellsville. Lebanon was on the railroad and it could be promptly and largely reinforced. The Confederate chieftain was too great a leader to be trapped. He realized that he must go higher up the Cumberland in the first place, and find another crossing, and in the second place to get out of the line of those who were bent on his destruction. The Federal leaders did not seem to be in a very great hurry. He turned southeast and on the night of the 28th of December camped on the Rolling Fork, a tributary of Salt River. This was a deep and ordinarily a sluggish stream, with high banks. The rain, a few days before, had filled its bed with angry currents and good fords were infrequent, and particularly fords that would let artillery over. There was a peculiar pride in part of the artillery that made the command ready to fight savagely for them. One of the pieces was a Parrott gun, a trophy of their valor at Hartsville. It was called “Long Tom” because of its extreme length. Closely associated with the victory at Hartsville, it became a great pet of the division, and was treasured as a mascot.