Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

The men could manage a few hours without food. They had fared well along the line in the plenteous and forsaken kitchens and dining rooms of the frightened inhabitants, who, upon the advance of the Confederates, left their tables loaded with well-prepared food and fled into the woods and fields to escape the terrors of what they called Morgan’s “murderers and horse thieves.”

The well-filled cribs and stables of the people of Harrison supplied the tired horses with a good feed. This was the last stop they were to make until they should end the march, and so the General allowed a brief rest and time to satisfy appetites, quickened by the long and tedious ride of the morning.

An hour was consumed in marching and counter-marching so as to mislead General Burnside and his thirty thousand soldiers at Cincinnati, only thirty-two miles away. These men at Cincinnati were planning to create a wall of infantry which it would be impossible for Morgan to pass.

Haste, haste, haste, was the watchword of the hour, and down the valley toward the Big Miami River the Confederate column moved. At dusk the long, wooden bridge across the Big Miami was struck. Bridges and railroads were dangerous enemies to leave in the rear, and the torch was called into requisition. As the red flames, created by the great burning timbers, rose skyward, they illumined the entire valley; and in the flickering shadows which they cast for several miles around, in the gloaming of the evening, among the trees and fences and buildings, huge, weird forms, born, it is true, of the imagination, filled the minds and hearts of the invading horsemen for the moment with apprehensive awe and depressing forebodings.

At midnight fifty-five miles had been marched by the ceaseless tramp of the wearied steeds. A hundred and forty-four thousand steps they had already taken, and still more than a hundred thousand were to be required before they could rest their tired limbs, and well might they inquire as their riders still spurred them onward, “Masters, masters, be ye men or devils which exact from your beasts such unseemly toil and fearful sufferings?” With the darkness of the night the fears seemed to subside, if fears there were. The wearied bodies called for sleep, sleep, yet there could be no staying for “tired nature’s sweet restorer.” The early hours of the night were filled with suffering, but as the intense darkness which preceded the coming dawn enveloped the column, the strain became still more terrible. Horses, unwilling and unable to go further forward, sank down in death with their riders astride still urging them onward, and under the dreadful physical burdens, strong men fell from their beasts as if smitten with sudden death. Hundreds of the men lashed themselves to their saddles while fighting the assaults of sleep. Riders losing consciousness failed to close up, and by the time the rear of the columns was reached, this closing up kept a large portion of the column much of the time in a gallop. Once it became necessary with lighted candles to crawl upon hands and knees and by the tracks determine which road the vanguard had ridden. Comrades, dismounted by the breaking down of their weakened steeds, walked beside the line, keeping pace with the horses, while others, where possible, sprang up behind their companions until a convenient stable by the roadside would provide a new mount.

A common sense of danger told even the most careless rider that the passage around Cincinnati was the moment of extreme danger, and as the column came nearer and nearer to that line, the thought that the supreme moment was at hand gave renewed strength and wakefulness to the majority of the men now attempting an unprecedented march.

Three times during the night General Morgan changed guides, and each time it was necessary by either open or covert threat to force an enemy to lead the column. Guides were informed that the compass would tell the story of their treachery and that death would be the sure consequence of their bad faith.

There was no direct line along which the command could march, and the change of direction did much to confuse the column. The crawl of the artillery and a large number of buggies bearing sick and wounded comrades over a hilly and woody country amidst almost absolute darkness, with here and there an unfriendly shot, made an ordeal which rarely if at all had come into soldier life.

By two o’clock in the morning the dead line at Glendale was passed. The Federal commander, deceived by Morgan’s marching and counter-marching, had carried a large body of troops too far north and Morgan had slipped through at this neglected point, and his strategy had foiled the Federal commander’s chances and efforts to check the invader. This line was crossed at a high rate of speed. If the passage of the troops had been obstructed, there was nothing to do but to ride over those who attempted to stay the march, and so every man rose in his stirrups, grasped his bridle reins with firmer hold, unswung his gun from his shoulder and carried it on the pommel of his saddle, and felt to be sure that his trusted revolvers were in their appointed places in his belt at his side. If foe appeared, woe be unto that foe unless he could present himself in such vast numbers as to stay the charge of twenty-five hundred troopers upon whose courage at this moment depended the escape of the division. The calls of the hour were met with a cheerful response. Every man carried in his bosom a firm resolve to sweep any foe from the appointed path and to cut his way through any ranks that might oppose his going. The intense emergencies of the moment made them almost hope that somebody would get in their way. There came into their minds a desire to fight rather than ride through, and a touch of pride made them anxious for some sort of contest to show that after all the wear and tear of the past twelve days they were quite as brave and virile as when in the flush of the beginning they had forced a passage of the Cumberland River. Fear seemed to vanish and prudence fled away, as these night riders saw the people of Glendale rush out into the streets, or from raised windows, with dreading apprehension, watch the strange procession gallop through the streets. In the enthusiasm of the moment, the dust-stained Confederates cheered for Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy and bade the alarmed onlookers tell General Burnside and his bluecoats that Morgan and his men had come and gone. Mind rose superior to the pain and weariness of body, and in these words of good-natured badinage was a new evidence of the valor and spirit of these bold raiders.

Though the line was passed, safety was not yet assured. The larger bodies of infantry were close at hand. A great task had been accomplished, and still there were thirty-eight miles ahead, and this distance, now every moment growing longer and longer, the weary horsemen knew must be covered before solid rest was attainable. In a little while the sunshine came to brighten the earth and to cheer as it always does cheer struggling humanity, but the record was yet unbroken. Every mile seemed to grow into a dozen miles. Each step brought increasing suffering. Skirmishes and contact with the militia would arouse the men for a brief while, but with the cessation of the excitement, nature would again lift its cry for mercy and plead for sleep for man and beast.