HAMILTON COUNTY OHIO - History of Hamilton County Ohio (published 1881) Chapter XII

***********************************************************************
OHGENWEB NOTICE:  All distribution rights to this electronic data are
reserved by the submitter.  Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted
material will require the permission of the copyright owner.  The submitter
has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently
for free access.  

http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/
***********************************************************************
File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Tina Hursh
frog158@juno.com
August 11, 2000
Transcribed by Laura Vogel
***********************************************************************
Ch 12 The Morgan Raid through Ohio - pgs 193-200
***********************************************************************

History of Hamilton County Ohio with Illustrations and Biographical
Sketches.

Compiled by Henry A. Ford, A.M. and Mrs. Kate B. Ford, L.A. William & Co.,
Publishers; 1881.

 Pages: 193-200
                                  ~pg 193~
                                CHAPTER XII.
                       THE MORGAN RAID THROUGH OHIO.

THE great Rebellion brought two notable and memorable events to Hamilton
county - the "Siege of Cincinnati" in the summer and fall of 1862, and the
raid of John MORGAN through southern Ohio, traversing the entire length of
this county as he entered the State, in July, 1863. The story of the former
will be related in the history of Cincinnati; that of the latter will be
told here, in the general history of the county. It is extracted, very
nearly, from Whitelaw REID's admirable chapter on the subject in the first
volume of his Ohio in the War, omitting some of the less important
foot-notes, and embodying others in the text.1 In July, 1863, ROSECRANS lay
at Stone River, menacing BRAGG at Tullahoma, BURNSIDE was at Cincinnati
organizing a force for the redemption of east Tennessee, which was already
moved well down toward the confines of that land of steadfast but
sore-tried loyalty. BRAGG felt himself unable to confront ROSECRANS;
BUCKNER had in East Tennessee an inadequate force to confront BURNSIDE. But
the communications of both ROSECRANS and BURNSIDE ran through Kentucky,
covered mostly by the troops (numbering perhaps ten thousand in all) under
General JUDAH. If these communications were threatened, this last force
would at least be kept from reinforcing ROSECRANS or BURNSIDE, and the
advance of one or both of these officers might e delayed. So reasoned BRAGG
as, with anxious forebodings, he looked about the lowering horizon for aid
in his extremity.

He had an officer who carried the reasoning to bolder conclusion. If, after
a raid through Kentucky, which should endanger the communications and fully
occupy General JUDAH, he should cross the border and carry terror to the
peaceful homes of Indiana and Ohio, he might create such a panic as should
delay the new troops about to be sent to ROSECRANS, and derange the plans
of the Federal campaign. There was no adequate force, he argued, in Indiana
or Ohio to oppose him; he could brush aside the local militia like
house-flies, and outride any cavalry that could be seat in pursuit; while
in his career he would inevitably draw the whole Union force in Kentucky
after him, thus diminishing the pressure upon BRAGG and delaying the attack
upon East Tennessee. This was John MORGAN's plan.

BRAGG did not approve it. He ordered MORGAN to make a raid in Kentucky;
gave him carte blanche to go wherever he chose in that State, and
particularly urged upon him the capture of Louisville, but forbade the
crossing of the Ohio. Then he turned to the perils with which ROSECRANS'
masterly strategy was environing him.

Morgan prepared at once to execute his orders; but at the same time he gave
confidential information to Basil W. DUKE, his second in command, of his
intention to disregard BRAGG's prohibition. He even went further. Weeks
before his movement began, he sent men to examine the fords of the upper
Ohio, that at Buffington Island among them, and expressed an intention to
recross in that vicinity, unless LEE's movements in Pennsylvania should
make it advisable to continue his march on northern soil, until he thus
joined the army of northern Virginia.

Here, then, was a man who knew precisely what he wanted to do. He arranged
a plan far-reaching, comprehensive, and perhaps the boldest that the
cavalry service of the war disclosed; and before the immensely superior
forces which he evaded could comprehend what he was about, he had half
executed it. On the second of July he began to cross the Cumberland at
Burkesville and Turkey Neck Bend, almost in the face of JUDAH's cavalry,
which, lying twelve miles away, at Marrowbone, trusted to the swollen river
as sufficient to render the crossing impracticable. The mistake was fatal.
Before JUDAH moved down to resist, two regiments and portions of others
were across. With these MORGAN attacked, drove the cavalry into its camp at
Marrowbone, and was then checked by the artillery. But his crossing was
thus secured, and long before JUDAH could get his forces gathered together,
MORGAN was half way to Columbia. He had two thousand four hundred and sixty
men, all told. Before him lay three States - Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio -
which he meant to traverse; one filled with hostile troops, the others with
a hostile swarming population. The next day, at the crossing of Green
River, he came upon Colonel MOORE, with a Michigan regiment, whom he vainly
summoned to surrender, and vainly strove to dislodge. The fight was severe
for the little time it lasted; and MORGAN, who had no time to spare, drew
off, found another crossing, and pushed on through Campbellsville to
Lebanon. Here came the last opportunity to stop him. Three regiments held
the position, but two of them were at some little distance from the town.
Falling upon the one in the town, he overwhelmed it before the others could
get up, left them hopelessly in his rear, and double-quicked his prisoners
eight miles northward to Springfield, before he could stop long enough to
parole them.2 Then, turning northwestward, with his foes far behind him, he
marched straight for Brandenburgh, on the Ohio River, some sixty miles
below Louisville. A couple of companies were sent forward to capture boats
for the crossing; others were detached to cross below and effect a
diversion; and still others were sent toward Crab Orchard to distract the
attention of the Union commanders. He tapped the telegraph wires, thereby
finding that he was expected at Louisville, and that the force there was
too strong for him; captured a train from Nashville within thirty miles of
Louisville; picked up squads of prisoners here and there, and
~pg 194~
paroled them. By ten o'clock on the morning of the eighth, his horsemen
stood on the banks of the Ohio. They had crossed Kentucky in five days.

When the advance companies, sent forward to secure boats, entered
Brandenburgh, they took care to make as little confusion as possible.
Presently the Henderson and Louisville packet, the J. J. McCoombs, came
steaming up the river, and landed as usual at the wharf-boat. As it made
fast its lines, thirty or forty of MORGAN's men quietly walked on board and
took possession. Soon afterward the Alice Dean, a fine boat running in the
Memphis and Cincinnati trade, came around the bend. As she gave no sign of
landing, they steamed out to meet her, and before captain or crew could
comprehend the matter, the Alice Dean was likewise transferred to the
Confederate service. When MORGAN rode into town a few hours later, the
boats were ready for his crossing.

Indiana had just driven out a previous invader - Captain HINES, of MORGAN's
command - who, with a small force, had crossed over "to stir up the
Copperheads," as the rebel accounts pleasantly express it. Finding the
country too hot for him, he had retired, after doing considerable damage;
and in Brandenburgh he was now awaiting his chief.

Preparations were at once made for crossing over, but the men crowding down
incautiously to the river bank, revealed their presence to the militia on
the Indiana side, whom Captain HINES' recent performance had made
unwontedly watchful. They at once opened a sharp fusilade across the
stream, with musketry and an old cannon which they had mounted on
wagon-wheels. MORGAN speedily silenced this fire by bringing up his Parrott
rifles; then hastily dismounted two of his regiments and sent them across.
The militia retreated and the two rebel regiments pursued. Just then a
little tin-clad, the Springfield, which Commander Leroy FITCH had
dispatched from New Albany, on the first news of something wrong down the
river, came steaming towards the scene of action. Suddenly "checking her
way," writes the rebel historian of the raid, Colonel Basil DUKE, in his
history of MORGAN's cavalry, "she tossed her snubnose defiantly, like an
angry beauty of the coal-pits, sidled a little toward the town, and
commenced to scold. A bluish-white, funnel-shaped cloud spouted ,out from
her left-hand bow, and a shot flew at the town, and then, changing front
forward, she snapped a shell at the men on the other side. I wish I were
sufficiently master of nautical phraseology to do justice to this little
vixen's style of fighting; but she was so unlike a horse or even a piece of
light artillery, that I cannot venture to attempt it." He adds that the
rebel regiments on the Indiana side found shelter, and that thus the
gunboat fire proved wholly without effect. After a little MORGAN trained
his Parrotts upon her; and the inequality in the range of the guns was such
that she speedily turned up the river again.

The situation had seemed sufficiently dangerous. Two regiments were
isolated on the Indiana side; the gunboat was between them and their main
body; while every hour of delay brought HOBSON nearer on the Kentucky side,
and speeded the mustering of the Indiana militia. But the moment the
gunboat turned up the river, all danger for the moment was past. MORGAN
rapidly crossed the rest of his command, burned the boats behind him,
scattered the militia and rode out into Indiana. There was yet time to make
a march of six miles before nightfall.

The task now before MORGAN was a simple one, and for several days could not
be other than an easy one. His distinctly formed plan was to march through
southern Indiana and Ohio, avoiding large towns and large bodies of
militia, spreading alarm through the country, making all the noise, he
could, and disappearing again across the upper fords of the Ohio before the
organizations of militia could get such shape and consistency as to be able
to make head against him. For some days, at least, he need expect no
adequate resistance, and, while the bewilderment as to his purposes and
uncertainty as to the direction he was taking should paralyze the gathering
militia, he meant to place many a long mile between them and his hard
riders.

Spreading, therefore, all manner of reports as to his purposes and assuring
the most that he meant to penetrate to the heart of the State and lay
Indianapolis in ashes, he turned the beads of his horses up the river
towards Cincinnati; scattered the militia with the charges of his advance
brigade; burnt bridges and cut telegraph wires right and left; marched
twenty-one hours out of twenty-four, and rarely made less than fifty or
sixty miles a day.

His movement had at first attracted little attention. The North was used to
having Kentucky in a panic about invasion from John MORGAN, and had come to
look upon it mainly as a suggestion of a few more blooded horses from the
"Blue Grass" that were to be speedily impressed into the rebel service.
Gettysburg had just been fought; Vicksburgh had just fallen; what were John
MORGAN and his horse-thieves? Let Kentucky guard her own stables against
her own outlaws!

Presently he came nearer and Louisville fell into a panic. Martial law was
proclaimed; business was suspended; every preparation for defence was
hastened. Still, few thought of danger beyond the river, and the most,
remembering the siege of Cincinnati, were disposed to regard as very
humorous the ditching and the drill by the terrified people of the Kentucky
metropolis.

Then came the crossing. The governor of Indiana straightway proclaimed
martial law, and called out the legion. General BURNSIDE was full of wise
plans for "bagging" the invader, of which the newspapers gave mysterious
hints. Thoroughly trustworthy gentlemen hastened with their "reliable
reports" of the rebel strength. They had stood on the wharf-boat and kept
tally of the cavalry crossed; and there was not a man less than five
thousand of them. Others had talked with them, and been confidently assured
that they were going up to Indianapolis to burn the State house. Others, on
the same veracious authority, were assured that they were heading for New
Albany and Jeffersonville to burn Government stores. The militia everywhere

~pg 195~
were sure that it was their duty to gather in their own towns and keep
MORGAN off; and, in the main, he saved them the trouble by riding around.
HOBSON came lumbering along in the rear - riding his best, but finding it
hard to keep the trail; harder to procure fresh horses, since of these
MORGAN made a clean sweep as he went; and impossible to narrow the distance
between them to less than twenty-five hours.

Still the purpose of the movement was not divined - its very audacity was
its protection. General BURNSIDE concluded that HOBSON was pressing the
invaders so hard, forsooth, that they must swim across the Ohio below
Madison to escape, and his dispositions for intercepting them proceeded on
that theory. The Louisville packets were warned not to leave Cincinnati,
lest MORGAN should bring with them his artillery and force them to ferry
him back into Kentucky. Efforts were made to raise regiments to aid the
Indianians, if only to reciprocate the favor they had shown when Cincinnati
was under siege; but the people were tired of such alarms, and could not be
induced to believe in the danger. By Sunday, July 12, three days after
MORGAN's entry upon northern soil, the authorities had advanced their
theory of his plan to correspond with the news of his movements. They now
thought he would swim the Ohio a little below Cincinnati, at or near
Aurora; but the citizens were more apprehensive. They began to talk about a
"sudden dash into the city." The mayor requested that business be suspended
and that the citizens assemble in their respective wards for defence.
Finally General BURNSIDE came to the same view, proclaimed martial law, and
ordered the suspension of business. Navigation was practically stopped, and
gun-boats scoured the river banks to remove all scows and flat-boats which
might aid MORGAN in his escape to the Kentucky shore. Later in the evening
apprehensions that, after all, MORGAN might not be so anxious to escape,
prevailed. Governor TOD was among the earliest to recognize the danger;
and, while there was still time to secure insertion in the newspapers of
Monday morning, he telegraphed to the press a proclamation calling out the
militia:
                                                   COLUMBUS, July 12, 1863.

THE PRESS OF CINCINNATI:

Whereas, this State is in imminent danger of invasion by an armed force,
now, therefore, to prevent the same, I, David TOD, Governor of the State of
Ohio, and commander-in-chief of the militia force thereof, by virtue of the
authority vested in me by the constitution and laws of said State, do
hereby call into active service that portion of the militia force which has
been organized into companies within the counties of Hamilton, Butler,
Montgomery, Clermont, Brown, Clinton, Warren, Greene, Fayette, Ross,
Monroe, Washington, Morgan, Noble, Athens, Meigs, Scioto, Jackson, Adams,
Vinton, Hocking, Lawrence, Pickaway, Franklin, Madison, Fairfield, Clark,
Preble, Pike, Gallia, Highland, and Perry. I do hereby further order all
such forces, residing within the counties of Hamilton, Butler, and
Clermont, to report forthwith to Major General A. E. BURNSIDE, at his
headquarters in the city of Cincinnati, who is hereby authorized and
required to cause said forces to be organized into battalions or regiments,
and appoint all necessary officers therefor. And it is further ordered that
all such forces residing in the counties of Montgomery, Warren, Clinton,
Fayette, Ross, Highland, and Brown, report forthwith to Colonel NEFF, the
military commander at Camp Dennison, who is hereby authorized to organize
said forces into battalions or regiments, and to appoint, temporarily,
officers therefor; and it is further ordered that all of such forces
residing in the counties of Franklin, Madison, Clark, Greene, Pickaway, and
Fairfield, report forthwith at Camp Chase to Brigadier General S. MASON,
who is hereby authorized to organize said forces into battalions or
regiments, and appoint, temporarily, officers therefor; it is further
ordered that all such forces residing in the counties of Washington,
Monroe, Noble, Meigs, Morgan, Perry, Hocking, and Athens, report forthwith
to Colonel William R. PUTNAM, at Camp Marietta, who is hereby authorized to
organize said forces into battalions or regiments, and appoint,
temporarily, officers therefor.

DAVID TOD, Governor.

It was high time. Not even yet had the authorities begun to comprehend the
tremendous energy with which MORGAN was driving straight to his goal. While
the people of Cincinnati were reading this proclamation, and considering
whether or not they should put up the shutters of their store-windows,3
MORGAN was starting out in the gray dawn from Sunmanville for the suburbs
of Cincinnati. Long before the rural population within fifty miles of the
city had read the proclamation calling them to arms, he was at Harrison,
which he reached at one P. M., Monday, July 13th. "Here," pleasantly
explains his historian, "General MORGAN began to manoeuver for the benefit
of the commanding officer at Cincinnati. He took it for granted there was a
strong force of regular troops in that city. BURNSIDE had them not far off,
and General MORGAN supposed that they would of course be brought there. If
he could get past Cincinnati safely, the danger of the expedition, he
thought, would be more than half over. Here he expected to be confronted by
the concentrated forces of JUDAH and BURNSIDE, and he anticipated great
difficulty in eluding or cutting his way through them. Once safely through
this peril, his escape would be certain, unless the river remained so high
that the transports could carry troops to intercept him at the upper
crossings," --- unless, indeed! " His object, therefore, entertaining these
views, and believing that the great effort to capture him would be made as
he crossed the Hamilton & Dayton railroad, was to deceive the enemy as to
the exact point where he would cross this road, and denude that point as
much as possible of troops. He sent detachments in various directions,
seeking, however, to create the impression that he was marching to
Hamilton."

This was a wise and prudent action in the audacious rebel commander; but,
well as he read the purposes of his antagonists, he here made a mistake. He
supposed that he was to be confronted by military men, acting on military
principles. As it was, he deceived everybody. The Hamilton people
telegraphed in great alarm that MORGAN was marching on their town. A fire
was seen burning at Venice; and straightway they threw out pickets to guard
the main roads in that direction, to watch for MORGAN's coming. Harrison
sent in word of the passage of the rebel cavalry through that place at one
o'clock, and of the belief that they were going to Hamilton. Wise, deputy
sheriff, who had been captured by MORGAN and parolled, hastened to tell
that the rebel chief had conversed very freely with him, had shown no
hesitation in speaking of his plans, and had assured him that he was going
to Hamilton. All this was retailed at
~pg 196~
the headquarters, on the streets, and in the newspaper offices.

That night, while the much enduring printers were putting these stories in
type, John MORGAN's entire command, now reduced to a strength of barely two
thousand, was marching through the suburbs of this city of a quarter of a
million inhabitants, within reach of troops enough to eat them up,
absolutely unopposed, almost without meeting a solitary picket or receiving
a hostile shot.

"In this night march around Cincinnati," writes again the historian of
MORGAN's cavalry, "we met with the greatest difficulty in keeping our
column together. The guides were all in front with General MORGAN, who rode
at the head of the Second brigade, then marching in advance. This brigade
had, consequently, no trouble, but the First brigade was embarrassed beyond
measure. CLARK's regiment was marching in the rear of the Second; if it had
kept closer up we would have had no trouble, for the entire column would
have been directed by the guides. But this regiment, although composed of
superb material, and unsurpassed in fighting qualities, had, from the
period of its organization, been under lax and careless discipline; and the
effect of it was now observable. The rear companies straggled, halted, and
delayed the First brigade - for it was impossible to ascertain immediately
whether the halt was that of the brigade in advance or only these
stragglers - and, when forced to move on, they would go off at a gallop. A
great gap would thus be opened between the rear of our brigade and the
advance of the other; and we who were behind were forced to grope our way
as best we could. When we would come to one of the many junctions of roads
which occur in the suburbs of a large city, we would be compelled to
consult all sorts of indications in order to hit upon the right road. The
night was intensely dark, and we would set on fire large bundles of paper
or splinters of wood to afford a light. The horses' tracks on roads so much
travelled would give us no clue to the route which the other brigade had
taken at such points; but we could trace it by noticing the direction in
which the dust 'settled' or floated. We could also trace the column by the
slaver dropped from the horses' mouths. It was a terrible, trying march.
Strong men fell out of their saddles, and at every halt the officers were
compelled to move continually about in their respective companies, and pull
and haul the men, who would drop asleep in the road - it was the only way
to keep them awake. Quite a number crept off into the fields and slept
until awakened by the enemy. At length day appeared, just as we reached the
last point where we had to anticipate danger. We had passed through
Glendale and across all of the principal suburban roads, and were near the
Little Miami railroad. Those who have marched much at night will remember
that the fresh air of morning invariably has a cheering effect upon the
tired and drowsy, and awakens and invigorates them. It had this effect on
our men on this occasion, and relieved us also from the necessity of
groping our way. We crossed the railroad without opposition, and halted to
feed our horses in sight of Camp Dennison. After a short rest here, and a
picket skirmish, we resumed our march, burning in this neighborhood a park
of government wagons. That evening at four o'clock, we were at
Williamsburg, twenty-eight miles east of Cincinnati, having marched since
leaving Sunmansville, in Indiana, in a period of about thirty-five hours,
more than ninety miles - the greatest march that even MORGAN had ever made.
Feeling comparatively safe here, he permitted the division to go into camp
and remain during the night."

From this picture, by a participant, of the march of two thousand rebel
cavalry, unopposed, through the suburbs of Cincinnati, we turn to the heart
of the city. Through the day there had been a little excitement and some
drilling. Part of the business houses were closed, but the attendance at
the ward meetings was very meagre. General COX, under directions from
General BURNSIDE, had divided the city and county into militia districts,
assigned commanders to each, and ordered the completion of their
organizations. The following is that part of the orders which relates to
the county at large:

Hamilton county, beyond the limits of the city, will be divided into
military districts as follows, and commandants of military companies will
report to the following named officers:

1. Mill Creek township, report to General J. H. BATES, city.
2. Anderson, Columbia and Spencer townships, report to James PEAL, Pleasant
Ridge.
3. Sycamore and Symmes townships, report to C. CONSTABLE, Montgomery.
4. Springfield and ___________ [probably Colerain] townships, report to
Henry GULICK, Bevis post office.
5. Crosby, Harrison, Miami, and Whitewater townships, report to W. F.
CONVERSE, Harrison.
6. Delhi, Storrs, and Green townships, report to Major Peter ZINN, Delhi.

The above named officers will immediately assume command and establish
their headquarters.

The district commandants had ordered the militia to - "parade to-morrow!"
By "to-morrow," as we have seen, John MORGAN, after riding through the
suburbs, was twenty-eight miles away. Toward midnight glimmerings of how it
was being overreached began to dawn upon the public mind, as may be seen
from the latest bulletins from headquarters, which the newspapers were
permitted to publish. While the printers were busy with them, MORGAN was
marching his straggling, exhausted, scattered columns through the suburbs
of Cincinnati. About the time city readers were glancing over them, he was
feeding his horses and driving off the pickets at Camp Dennison:

11:30 P. M. - A courier arrived last evening at General BURNSIDE's
headquarters, having left Cheviot at half past eight in the afternoon, with
information for the general. Cheviot is only seven miles from the city. He
states that about five hundred of MORGAN's men had crossed the river at
Miamitown, and attacked our pickets, killing or capturing one of them.
MORGAN's main force, said to be three thousand strong, was then crossing
the river. A portion of the rebel force had been up to New Haven, and
another had gone to New Baltimore, and partially destroyed both of those
places. The light of the burning towns was seen by our men. When the
courier left, MORGAN was moving up, it was reported, to attack our advance.

1 A. M. - A courier has just arrived at headquarters from Colerain, with
dispatches for General BURNSIDE. He reports that the enemy, supposed to be
two thousand five hundred strong, with six pieces of artillery, crossed the
Colerain pike at dark at Bevis, going toward New Burlington, or to the
Cincinnati and Hamilton pike, in the direction of Springdale.

1:30 A. M. - A dispatch from Jones's station state that the enemy are now
encamped between Venice and New Baltimore.
~pg 197~

2 A. M. - Another dispatch says the enemy are coming in, or a squad of
them, from New Baltimore toward Glendale, for the supposed purpose of
destroying a bridge over the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad near
Glendale.

2 A. M. - A dispatch from Hamilton says it is believed that the main
portion of MORGAN's force is moving in that direction, going east. At this
writing - a quarter past two in the afternoon - it is the impression that
MORGAN's main force is going east, while he has sent squads to burn bridges
on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad, and over the Miami river;
but he may turn and come down this way on some of the roads leading through
Walnut Hills and Mount Auburn.

As a matter of fact, squads of MORGAN's men did pass from Lockland through
Sharpsburgh and Montgomery, and even so close to the city as Duck creek,
two miles from the corporation line, stealing all the fine horses they
could lay their hands upon.

The next day, with the revelation that MORGAN was gone, began the gathering
of the militia. Some hurried to Camp Chase, to be there held for the
protection of the capital, or thence thrown toward southeastern Ohio, on
his front. Others assembled at Camp Dennison hurried by rail after him. All
over the southern part of the State was a hasty mustering and crowding upon
extra trains, and rush to the points of danger. HOBSON, who, in spite of
MORGAN's tremendous marching, was only a few hours behind, pressed so hard
upon his trail that the flying band had little time for the burning of
railroad bridges, or indeed for aught but the impressment of fresh horses.
JUDAH, with his troops, was dispatched by boats to gain the front of the
galloping column and head it off from the river.

Meantime the excitement and apprehension in all the towns and villages
within thirty or forty miles of MORGAN's line of march was unprecedented in
the history of the State. Thrifty farmers drove off their horses and cattle
to the woods. Thrifty housewives buried their silver spoons. At least one
terrified matron, in a pleasant inland town forty miles from the rebel
route, in her husband's absence, resolved to protect the family carriage
horse at all hazards; and, having no safer place, led him into the house
and stabled him in the parlor, locking and bolting doors and windows,
whence the noise of his dismal tramping on the resounding floor sounded
through the livelong night like distant peals of artillery, and kept half
the citizens awake and watching for MORGAN's entrance.

There was, indeed, sufficient cause for considering property insecure
anywhere within reach of the invaders. Horses and food, of course, they
took wherever and whenever they wanted them; our own raiding parties
generally did the same. But the mania for plunder which befel this command
and made its line of march look like a procession of peddlers, was
something beyond all ordinary cavalry plundering. We need look for no other
stronger words, in describing it, than the second in command has himself
chosen to use: "The disposition for wholesale plundering," he frankly
admits, "exceeded anything that any of us had ever seen before. The men
seemed actuated by a desire to pay off in the enemy's country all scores
that the Union army had chalked up in the South. The great cause for
apprehension which our situation might have inspired seemed only to make
them reckless. Calico was the staple article of appropriation. Each man who
could get one, tied a bolt of it to his saddle, only to throw it away and
get a fresh one at the first opportunity. They did not pillage with any
sort of method or reason. It seemed to be a mania, senseless and
purposeless. One man carried a bird cage, with three canaries in it, for
two days. Another rode with a chafing dish, which looked like a small
metallic coffin, on the pommel of his saddle, till an officer forced him to
throw it away. Although the weather was intensely warm, another slung seven
pairs of skates around his neck, and chuckled over the acquisition. I saw
very few articles of real value taken; they pillaged like boys robbing an
orchard. I would not have believed that such a passion could have been
developed so ludicrously among any body of civilized men. At Piketon, Ohio,
some days later, one man broke through the guard posted at a store, rushed
in, trembling with excitement and avarice, and filled his pockets with horn
buttons. They would, with few exceptions, throw away their plunder after a
while, like children tired of their toys."

Some movements of our own were, after their different fashion, scarcely
less ludicrous. Some militia from Camp Dennison, for example, marched after
MORGAN till near Batavia, when they gravely halted and began felling the
trees, to check him in case he should decide to come back over the route he
had just travelled! A worthy militia officer telegraphed to Governor TOD
MORGAN's exact position, and assured him that the rebel forces numbered
precisely four thousand seven hundred and fifty men! BURNSIDE himself
telegraphed that it was now definitely ascertained that MORGAN had about
four thousand men. At Chillicothe they mistook some of their own militia
for rebel scouts, and by way of protection burned a bridge across a stream
that was, at that season, fordable anywhere, and near the bridge the water
scarcely came to the horses' knees! Governor TOD felt sure that only the
heavy concentration of militia at Camp Chase had kept MORGAN from seizing
Columbus and plundering the State treasury. Several days after the bulk of
the raiding force had been captured the governor gravely wrote to a militia
officer at Cleveland, whom he was exhorting to renewed vigilance: "I
announce to you that MORGAN may yet reach the lake shore."

But if there was an error in the zeal displayed, it was on the safe side.
Over fifty thousand Ohio militia actually took the field against the
sore-pressed fleeing band. Not half of them, however, at any time got
within three-score miles of MORGAN.

That officer was meantime intent neither upon the lake shore nor yet upon
the treasury vaults at Columbus; but, entirely satisfied with the commotion
he had created, was doing his best to get out of the State. He came very
near doing it.

On the morning of the sixteenth of July, he was stopping to feed his horses
in sight of Camp Dennison. That evening he encamped at Williamsburgh,
twenty-eight miles east of Cincinnati. Then, marching through Washington
Court-house, Piketon (with Colonel Richard MORGAN going through
Georgetown), Jackson, Vinton,
~pg 198~
Berlin, Pomeroy, and Chester, he reached the ford at Buffington Island on
the evening of the eighteenth. But for his luckless delay for a few hours
at Chester, it would seem that he might have escaped.

Until he reached Pomeroy, he encountered comparatively little resistance.
At Camp Dennison there was a little skirmish, in which a rebel lieutenant
and several privates were captured; but Lieutenant Colonel NEFF wisely
limited his efforts to the protection of the bridge and camp. A train of
the Little Miami road was thrown off the track. At Berlin there was a
skirmish with the militia under Colonel RUNKLE. Small militia skirmishes
were constantly occurring, the citizen soldiery hanging on the flanks of
the flying invaders and wounding two or three men every day, and
occasionally killing one.

At last the daring little column approached its goal. All the troops in
Kentucky had been evaded and left behind. All the militia in Indiana had
been dashed aside or outstripped. The fifty thousand militia in Ohio had
failed to turn it from its pre-determined path. Within precisely fifteen
days from the morning it had crossed the Cumberland - nine days from its
crossing into Indiana - it stood once more on the banks of the Ohio. A few
hours more of daylight, and it would be safely across, in the midst again
of a population to which it might look for sympathy if not for aid.

But the circle of the hunt was narrowing. JUDAH, with his fresh cavalry,
was up, and was marching out from the river against MORGAN. HOBSON was hard
on his rear. Colonel RUNKLE, commanding a division of militia, was north of
him. And, at last, the local militia in advance of him were beginning to
fell trees and tear up bridges to obstruct his progress. Near Pomeroy they
made a stand. For four or five miles his road ran through a ravine, with
occasional intersections from hill roads. At all these cross-roads he found
the militia posted; and from the hills above him they made his passage
through the ravine a perfect running of the gauntlet. On front, flank, and
rear, the militia pressed; and, as MORGAN's first subordinate ruefully
expressed it, "closed eagerly upon our track." In such plight he passed
through the ravine and shaking clear of his pursuers for a while, pressed
on to Chester, where he arrived about one o'clock in the afternoon of the
eighteenth of July.

Here he made the first serious military mistake that had marked his course
on northern soil. He was within a few hours' ride of the ford at which he
hoped to cross; and the skirmishing about Pomeroy should have given him
ample admonition of the necessity for haste. But he had been advancing
through the ravine at a gallop. He halted now to breathe his horses and to
hunt a guide. Three hours and a half thus lost went far toward deciding his
fate.

When his column was well closed up, and his guide was found he moved
forward. It was eight o'clock before he reached Portland, the little
village on the bank of the Ohio nearly opposite Buffington Island. Night
had fallen - a night of solid darkness, as the rebel officers declared. The
entrance to that ford was guarded by a little earthwork manned by only two
or three hundred infantry. This alone stood between him and an easy passage
to Virginia.

But his evil genius was upon him. He had lost an hour and a half at Chester
in the afternoon - the most precious hour and a half since his feet touched
Northern soil; and he now decided to waste the night. In the hurried
council with his exhausted officers it was admitted on all hands that JUDAH
had arrived - that some of his troops had given force to the skirmishing
near Pomeroy - that they would certainly be at Buffington by morning, and
that gun-boats would accompany them. But his men were in bad condition, and
he feared to trust them in a night attack upon a fortified position which
he had not reconnoitred. The fear was fatal. Even yet, by abandoning his
wagon-train and his wounded, he might have reached unguarded fords a little
higher up. This, too, was mentioned by his officers. He would save all, he
promptly replied, or would lose all together. And so he gave mortgages to
fate. By morning JUDAH was up. At daybreak DUKE advanced with a couple of
rebel regiments to storm the earthwork, but found it abandoned. He was
rapidly proceeding to make dispositions for crossing, when JUDAH's advance
struck him. At first he repulsed it, and took a number of prisoners, the
adjutant general of JUDAH's staff among them. MORGAN then ordered him to
hold the force on his front in check. He was not able to return to his
command till it had been broken and thrown in full retreat before an
impetuous charge of JUDAH's cavalry, headed by Lieutenant O'NEIL, of the
Fifth Indiana. He succeeded in rallying and reforming his line. But now
advancing up the Chester and Pomeroy road came the gallant cavalry that,
over three States, had been galloping on their track - the three thousand
of HOBSON's command - who for now nearly two weeks had been only a day, a
forenoon, an hour be- hind them.

As HOBSON's guideons fluttered out in the little valley by the river bank
where they fought, every man of that band that had so long defied a hundred
thousand knew that the contest was over. They were almost out of
ammunition, exhausted, and scarcely two thousand strong; against whom were
HOBSON's three thousand and JUDAH's still larger force. To complete the
overwhelming odds, that in spite of their efforts had at last been
concentrated upon them, the ironclad gun-boats steamed up and opened fire.

MORGAN comprehended the situation as fast as the hard-riding troopers, who,
still clinging to their bolts of calico, were already galloping toward the
rear. He at once essayed to extricate his trains, and then to withdraw his
regiments by column of fours from right of companies, keeping up meanwhile
as sturdy resistance as he might. For some distance the withdrawal was made
in tolerable order; then, under a charge of a Michigan cavalry regiment,
the retreat became a rout. MORGAN, with not quiet twelve hundred men,
escaped. His brother, with Colonels DUKE, WARD, HUFFMAN, and about seven
hundred men were taken prisoners.

This was the battle of Buffington Island. It was brief and decisive. But
for his two mistakes of the night be-
~pg 199~
fore, MORGAN might have avoided it and escaped; yet it cannot be said that
he yielded to the blow that insured his fate without spirited resistance
and a courage and tenacity worthy of a better cause. Our superiority in
forces was overwhelming, and our loss trifling. Among the few killed,
however, was Major Daniel McCOOK, of Cincinnati, a patriotic old man, for
whose fate there was a very general regret. He was not in the service, but
had accompanied the cavalry as a volunteer. He was accorded a military
funeral at Cincinnati, which was largely attended. He was the father of
Robert L., Alexander M., and George W. McCOOK, besides several other sons,
nearly all of whom, with notable unanimity, had been in the service from
the outbreak of the war, and most of whom had risen to high rank.

The prisoners were at once sent down the river to Cincinnati, on the
transports which had brought up some of their prisoners, in charge of
Captain DAY, of General JUDAH's staff, of whose manly and soldiery courtesy
they made grateful mention, albeit not much given to praiseing the
treatment they received at the North. The troops, with little rest, pushed
on after MORGAN.

And now began the dreariest experience of the rebel chief. Twenty miles
above Buffington he struck the river again, got three hundred of his
command across, and was himself midway in the stream when the approaching
gun-boats checked the passage. Returning to the nine hundred still on the
Ohio side, he once more renewed the hurried flight. His men were worn down
and exhausted by long-continued and enormous work; they were demoralized by
pillage, discouraged by the scattering of their command, weakened most of
all by the loss of faith in themselves and their commander, surrounded by a
multitude of foes, harassed at every hand, intercepted at every loophole of
escape, hunted like game night and day, driven hither and thither in their
vain efforts to double on their remorseless pursuers. It was the early type
and token of a similar fate under pursuit of which the great army of the
confederacy was to fade out; and no other words are needed to finish the
story we have now to tell than those with which the historian of the army
of the Potomac (SWINTON) describes the tragic flight to Appomattox Court
House:

Dark divisions sinking in the woods for a few hours' repose, would hear
suddenly in the woods the boom of hostile guns and the clatter of the
troops of the ubiquitous cavalry, and had to be up to hasten off. Thus
pressed on all sides, driven like sheep before prowling wolves, amid
hunger, fatigue, and sleeplessness, continuing day after day, they fared
toward the rising sun:
              "Such resting found the soles of unblest feet."

Yet to the very last the energy this daring cavalryman displayed was such
as to extort our admiration. From the jaws of disaster he drew out the
remnants of his command at Buffington. When foiled in the attempted
crossing above, he headed for the Muskingum. Foiled here by the militia
under REMKLE, he doubled on his track and turned again toward Blennerhasset
Island. The clouds of dust that marked his track betrayed the movement and
on three sides the pursuers closed in upon him. While they slept in
peaceful expectation of receiving his surrender in the morning, he stole
out along a hillside that had been thought impassable - his men walking in
single file and leading their horses; and by midnight he was out of the
toils, and once more marching hard to outstrip his pursuers. At last he
found an unguarded crossing of the Muskingum at Eaglesport, above
McConnellsville; and then, with an open country before him, struck out once
more for the Ohio.

This time Governor TOD's sagacity was vindicated. He urged the shipment of
troops by rail to Bellaire, near Wheeling; and by great-good fortune Major
WAY, of the Ninth Michigan cavalry, received the orders. Presently this
officer was on the scent. "MORGAN is making for Hammondsville," he
telegraphed General BURNSIDE on the twenty-fifth, "and will attempt to
cross the Ohio river at Wellsville. I have my section of battery, and shall
follow him closely." He kept his word, and gave the finishing stroke.
"MORGAN was attacked, with the remnant of his command, at 8 o'clock this
morning," announced General BURNSIDE on the next day, July 26th, "at
Salineville, by Major WAY, who, after a severe fight, routed the enemy,
killed about thirty, wounded some fifty, and took some two hundred
prisoners." Six hours later the long race ended: "I captured John MORGAN
today, at 2 o'clock P. M.," telegraphed Major RUE, of the Ninth Kentucky
cavalry, on the evening of the twenty-sixth, "taking three hundred and
twenty-six prisoners, four hundred horses and arms."

Salineville is in Columbiana county, but a few miles below the most
northerly point of the State touched by the Ohio river, and between
Steubenville and Wellsville, nearly two-thirds of the way up the eastern
border of the State. Over such distances had MORGAN passed, after the
disaster at Buffington, which all had supposed certain to end his career,
and so near had he come to making his escape from the State, with the
handful he was still able to keep together.

The circumstances of the final surrender were peculiar, and subsequently
led to an unpleasant dispute. MORGAN was being guided to the Pennsylvania
line by a Mr. BRUBECK, who had gone out with a small squad of volunteers
against him, but with whom, according to MOGAN's statement, an arrangement
had been made that, on condition that he would disturb no property in the
county, he was to be safely conducted out of it. Seeing by the clouds of
dust on a road parallel with the one he was on that the cavalry force was
rapidly gaining his front, and that thus his escape was definitely cut off,
he undertook to make a virtue of his necessity and try to gain terms by
volunteering surrender to his guide. BRUBECK eagerly swallowed the bait,
and accepted the surrender upon condition that officers and men were to be
immediately parolled. In a few minutes Major RUE was upon them. He doubted
the propriety of such a surrender, and referred the case to General
SHACKELFORD, the second in command in HOBSON's column, who at once
disapproved and refused to recognize it.

MORGAN thereupon appealed to Governor TOD, as commander of the Ohio
militia, claiming to have surrendered upon terms with one of his
subordinates, and calling upon him to maintain the honor of his officer
thus pledged.
~pg 200~
Governor TOD took some time to examine the case; and on the first of August
responded:

I find the facts substantially as follows: a private citizen of New Lisbon,
by the name of BRUBECK, went out with some fifteen or sixteen others to
meet your forces, in advance of an organized military body from the same
place, under the command of Captain CURRY. Said BRUBECK is not, and never
was, a militia officer in the service of this State. He was captured by
you, and travelled with you some distance before your surrender. Upon his
discovering the regular military forces of the United States to be in your
advance in line of battle, you surrendered to said BRUBECK, then your
prisoner. Whether you supposed him to be a captain in the militia service
or not, is entirely immaterial.

The officers of MORGAN's command - not so much, perhaps, because of the
lack of other secure accommodations, as through a desire to gratify the
popular feeling that they be treated rather as horse-thieves than as
soldiers, and with a wish also to retaliate in kind for the close
confinement to which the officers of Colonel STREIGHT's raiding party were
then subjected to in rebel prisons - were immured in the cells of the Ohio
penitentiary. They afterwards made bitter complaints of this indignity, as
well as of the treatment there received, there-by only illustrating the
different feelings with which men regard Andersonvilles and Salisburies
from those with which they themselves regard from the inside places much
less objectionable.

After some months of confinement, MORGAN himself and six other prisoners
made their escape, on the night of the twenty-seventh of November, by
cutting through the floors of their cells with knives carried off from the
prison table, till they reached the air-chamber below; tunneling from that
under the walls of the building into the outer yard, and climbing the wall
that surrounds the grounds by the aid of ropes made from their bed-clothes.
The State authorities were very much mortified at the escape, and ordered
an investigation. It was thus disclosed that the neglect which enabled the
prisoners to prosecute the tedious task of cutting through the stone floors
undiscovered had its origin in the coarse-minded suggestion of one of the
directors of the penitentiary that the daily sweeping of the cells be
omited, and the "d__d rebles made sweep out their own cells." This poor
effort to treat the prisoners of war worse than he treated the convicts
enabled them to cover up their work and conceal it from any inspection of
cells that was made. It was officially reported that misunderstandings
between the military authorities at Columbus and the civil authorities of
the penitentiary led to the escape. MORGAN quietly took the Little Miami
train for Cincinnati on the night of his escape, leaped off it a little
outside the city, made his way across the river, and was straightway
concealed and, forwarded toward the confederate lines by his Kentucky
friends. He lived to lead one more raid into the heart of his favorite
"Blue Grass," to witness the decline of his popularity, to be harassed by
officers in Richmond who did not understand him and by difficulties in his
command, and finally to fall while fleeing through a kitchen garden in a
morning skirmish in an obscure little village in East Tennessee. He left a
name second only to those of FOREST and STUART among the cavalry men of the
confederacy, and a character which, amid much to be condemned, was not
without traces of a noble nature.

Of the fifty thousand militia stated in round numbers as the total number
taking the field in this State during the MORGAN raid, Hamilton county was
reported by the adjutant general to have furnished fifteen companies, with
an agregate of one thousand, four hundred and sixty-one men on duty, to
whom were paid by the State the sum of eight thousand and one dollars. The
military committees of the different counties through which MORGAN passed,
including Hamilton county, were called on by the governor to furnish full
statements of the losses, both public and private, from the raid, and the
names of the sufferers. In 1864 the legislature ordered the appointment of
a board of commissioners to pass upon these claimes. - Messrs., Albert
McVEIGH, George W. BARKER, and Henry S. BABBITT were appointed, passed over
the track of MORGAN, and had public hearings for the examination of claims.
In Hamilton county four hundred and thirty-six claims were presented - for
damages done by the rebels, sixty-two thousand six hundred and twenty-two
dollars and thirty-seven cents; for damages by Union forces commanded by
Federal officers, twenty-five thousand two hundred and twenty-three dollars
and fourteen cents; for damages by Union forces not under such command, one
hundred and twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents; - total sum claimed,
eighty-seven thousand, nine hundred and seventy-three dollars, and one
cent. The commission allowed - for rebel damage, fifty-three thousand, six
hundred and forty-six dollars; damage by Union troops commanded by United
States officers, twenty thousand, five hundred and twenty-nine dollars;
damage by Union troops not so commanded, one hundred dollars; - total
allowed, seventy-four thousand, two hundred and dollars. Property to the
amount of four thousand four hundred and forty-five dollars taken from
Hamilton county was traced into possession of the Federal forces, and was
duly accounted and paid for. The total expense of the raid to the State as
estimated by the governor, inclusive of the pay proper of the militia, but
exclusive of the heavy expense of subsisting and transporting them, was
eight hundred and ninety-seven thousand dollars.


        ------------------------------------------------------------
1 This chapter and that on the "Siege of Cincinnati," in the second part of
this work, are extracted from Ohio in the War, by the courteous permission
of the publishers, Messrs. WILSTATCH, BALDWIN &, Company, of Cincinnati. We
congratulate the Ohio public, and especially the soldiers from the Buckeye
state in the late war, upon the prospect of a second and improved edition
of this great work, which is contemplated by this house. It is one of those
books which should never be "out of print" ---an honor to the State, and a
monument to the liberality and enterprise of its publishers and the
industry of its compilers and editor.

2 Some horrible barbarities to one or two of these prisoners were charged
against him in the newspapers of the day.

3 Many thousand men wholly disobeyed the orders, and kept their stores or
shops open through the day.