Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

Chapter XVI
MORGAN’S RIDE AROUND CINCINNATI, ON
“THE OHIO RAID,” JULY, 1863

In June, 1863, General Banks was hammering Port Hudson, Louisiana, where General Gardner, the commander of the Confederate forces, made such gallant and fierce resistance. The fall of Vicksburg on July 4th did not affect the valor of Gardner and his command. He fought until his men from mere exhaustion could fight no longer. Without rest, in constant battle for six weeks, flesh and blood could resist no more. He inflicted tremendous loss upon his assailants, and he yielded only when further resistance was physically impossible. These were very dark days for the people of the Southland.

After the Battle of Murfreesboro at Stone River, December 31, 1862—January 1, 1863, General Rosecrans remained inactive for five months. The mortality in this struggle measurably paralyzed the energies of both Confederates and Federals. Each general sat down to rest, renew hopes, recuperate and plead for reinforcements.

While Rosecrans had behind him almost unlimited resources, an ample fighting force of trained men and abundant supplies, the experience at Murfreesboro rendered him uncertain about grappling again with General Bragg, and the latter, with the awful memory of that struggle, was glad to wait for the other side to move.

That, in June, 1863, Bragg’s troops were at Shelbyville, Tennessee, about twenty miles away from Murfreesboro, was convincing evidence that Rosecrans was not eager for battle. The clamors of those in authority at Washington indicated that Rosecrans must advance. It was necessary for him either to go forward or resign, and in June he undertook to force Bragg still farther south.

Fifty miles from Nashville, at Shelbyville, General Bragg decided again to try the fortunes of war, but Rosecrans, with a larger army than Bragg, was able to turn his flanks. On the 27th of June General Bragg concentrated his army at Tullahoma, which was twenty miles from Shelbyville. He had at first determined there again to risk a battle. At this time, General Bragg was in extremely poor health. With friction among his generals and with enemies in front, he had suffered both mental and physical depletion, and General Hardee had said of him that he “was not able to take command in the field.” His corps commanders advised him to recede and retreat to Chattanooga, where with his army he arrived on the 7th of July, 1863. The spirit and courage of his men had suffered no depreciation. He had lost no guns and no supplies, and the rank and file had no sympathy in the movements which surrendered so much of Tennessee to Federal occupation. A third of Bragg’s army were Tennesseeans, and they looked upon a retreat to Chattanooga as little short of treason. Left to these men thus expatriated by military necessities, they would gladly have fought a battle every week.

Determined upon another trial of strength with Rosecrans, General Bragg undertook, through General John H. Morgan, to threaten and destroy the Federal lines of communication, to force the withdrawal of men to defend wagon trains, railroad bridges and trestles. Morgan was directed to enter Kentucky at or near Burksville on the Cumberland River, proceed northward to the Ohio River, and then retreat out of the state by the route which the exigencies of the moment should suggest as the most feasible road for a return to the army in Tennessee. For some days previous General Morgan’s division had been concentrating in Wayne County, Kentucky, in and around Monticello, its county seat, and he gradually worked his way towards Burksville. Across the Cumberland, Federal cavalry were guarding the paths into Central Kentucky and keeping a sharp lookout for Morgan and his followers. They had stringent orders to be vigilant and under no stress to allow the Confederate raider to steal by and start havoc and ruin on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, then essential for feeding Rosecrans’ advancing legions.

Here, waiting for the moment which would be most critical in General Bragg’s southward retreat, on the morning of July 2d, 1863, General Morgan’s division, twenty-six hundred strong, crossed the Cumberland River at Burksville and at Turkey Neck Bend, a few miles west of the town. Nine-tenths of the men composing this division were Kentuckians and all very young men. A thrill of joy stirred every heart and quickened every body, when the order came which turned their faces homeward. The men of Missouri, Maryland and Kentucky were the orphans of the Confederacy, and to them home-going in army days gave a touch of highest bliss. The First Brigade, under General Duke, crossed a short distance above Burksville, while the Second Brigade, under General Adam R. Johnson, crossed at Turkey Neck Bend, a few miles below Burksville, some five or six miles apart. The First Brigade had some flat boats, and the Second had one leaky flatboat and a couple of canoes. All the horses and some of the men of the Second Brigade must swim. There was no organized resistance to the crossing of the stream, which was full from bank to bank and its currents running at tremendous speed. The Federal watchers thought the great flood in the Cumberland River would temporarily stop Morgan, and with the water on their side, they did not believe it possible for the Confederates to pass over with their artillery and ammunition and get lodgment on the north side of the stream. They could not learn exactly where he would try to ferry; they knew he could not ford, and so, trusting to luck and high water, they securely waited in their camp for what the morrow would bring forth.

In the Second Brigade the saddles, guns, ammunition, cannon and clothing were placed in the ferryboat, and regiments one at a time were brought down to the river. The horses with their bridles and halters were driven into the stream and forced to take their chances, not only with the rapid current, but with the driftwood, which was very abundant and large. At some places it covered almost the entire surface. The stream was five-eighths of a mile wide. Many of the men clung to the ferryboat and thus swam across. Some held to the canoes and floated by their side, while others swam with their horses, holding to their manes or tails to prevent being swept down stream by its fierce tides. As the first detachment crossed over, the Federal pickets undertook to resist the landing. The part of the Confederates who were in the ferryboat and canoe with their clothes on, rushed into line, while those who swam, unwilling to be laggard, not halting to dress, seized their cartridge boxes and guns and rushed upon the enemy. The strange sight of naked men engaging in combat for a moment amazed the enemy. They had never seen soldiers before clad only in nature’s garb; they concluded that warriors, fully grown and armed, just born into the world, were the men they must fight. Amid such scenes as this was begun the thousand mile march which constituted Morgan’s Ohio Raid. The animals were quickly corralled and saddled, lines promptly formed, and the onslaught upon the Federals begun. It did not take long for Morgan’s men to discover that their presence was not only unwelcome, but was expected. In a little while dead troopers, dead steeds, abandoned clothing, lost haversacks and wrecked wagons along the highway gave mute but convincing proof of war’s terrors and war’s exactions. The Southern raiders thus early learned that the campaign would not be completed without much of conflict and loss. It did not take long to drive Woolford’s Federal cavalry out of Columbia. Nothing could stay the impetuous rush of these riders towards the Bluegrass. The resistance was feeble, but it was enough to show that enemies were abundant and alert. A few dead and wounded were left by both sides in Columbia, but these were remitted to the ministrations and care of non-combatants, while the fighters rode forward to new conflicts. The enthusiasm of homecoming lent renewed courage and ever-increasing vehemence to the Kentuckians, and they were ready to ride over anything that obstructed the way that pointed toward their friends farther up the state.

At Green River Stockade was stationed the 25th Michigan Infantry, commanded by Colonel O. B. Moore. The position of the stockade had been selected with great skill and protected by an impassable line, consisting of trees and rifle pits and sharpened pieces of wood with some wires and fencing. Against this a couple of regiments were hurled, but in vain. When surrender had been demanded of Colonel Moore, the Federal commander, he returned the laconic answer that “the Fourth of July was no day for me to entertain such a proposition.” He was a brave, gallant and fearless foe, and his patriotic response won the respect of his enemies. The tone of his reply foreboded trouble. The Confederates were not long in finding out that he was prepared in action to back up his words of eloquent defiance. General Morgan was compelled in a little while to do what his judgment now told him he should have done in the outset, that is to leave the stockade and the infantry alone. They were really not in his way, could do him no damage if left unmolested, and could join in no pursuit when once he had passed them by. In thirty minutes’ fighting more than forty men were killed and forty-five wounded. Of the enemy, nine were killed and twenty-six wounded. Colonel Chenault of the 11th Kentucky, Major Brent of the 5th, Lieutenant Cowan of the 3d, Lieutenants Holloway and Ferguson of the 5th were among the valiant and gallant officers who laid down their lives on that day for their country.