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In the early days of 1862 a new
name was growing at once into popular favor and popular fear among the prudent
Rebels of the Kentucky border. It was first heard of in the achievement of
carrying off the artillery belonging to the Lexington company of the Kentucky
State Guard into the Confederate service. Gradually it came to be coupled
with daring “scouts,” by little squads of the Rebel cavalry, within our
contemplative picket lines along Green River; with sudden dashes, like the
burning of the Bacon Creek Bridge, 1 which the lack of enterprise, or even of
ordinary vigilance on the part of some of our commanders permitted; with
unexpected swoops; upon isolated supply trains or droves of army cattle; with
saucy messages about an intention to burn the Yankees out of Woodsonvllle the
next week, and the like. Then came dashes within our lines about
Nashville, night attacks, audacious captures of whole squads of guards within
sight of the camps and within half a mile of division head-quarters, the seizure
of Gallatin, adroit impositions upon telegraph operators, which scoured whatever
news about the National armies was passing over the wires. Then, after Mitchell
had swept down into Northern Alabama, followed incursions upon his rear,
cotton -burning exploits under the very noses of his guards, open pillage of
citizens who had been encouraged by the advance the National armies to express
their loyalty.2 These acts covered a wide range of country, and followed each
other in quick succession, but they were all traced to John Morgan’s Kentucky
cavalry; and such were their frequency and daring, that by midsummer of 1862
Morgan and his men occupied almost as much of the popular attention in Kentucky
and along the border as Beauregard or Lee.
The
leader of the band was a native of Huntsville, Alabama, but from early boyhood a
resident of Kentucky. He had grown up to the free and easy life of a
slaveholding farmer’s son, in the heart of the
“Blue Grass country,”
near Lexington; had become a volunteer for the Mexican war at the early age of
nineteen, and had risen to a First-Lieutenancy; had passed through his share of
personal encounters and “affairs of honor”
about Lexington—not without wounds—and had finally married and settled
down as a manufacturer and speculator. He had lived freely, gambled
freely, shared in all the dissipations of the time and place, and still had
retained the early vigor of a powerful constitution, and a strong hold upon the
confidence of the hot-blooded young men of Lexington.
These followed him to the war. They were horsemen by instinct,
accustomed to a dare-devil life, capable of doing their own thinking in
emergencies without waiting for orders, and in all respects the best material for
an independent band of partisan rangers the country had produced. They were
allied by family connections with many of the leading people of the ‘‘Blue
Grass” region and it could not but result that
when they appeared in Kentucky—whatever army might be near—they found themselves
among friends.
The people of Ohio had hardly
recovered from the spasmodic effort to raise regiments in a day for a second
defense of the capital, into which they had been thrown by the call of the
Government in its alarm at Stonewell Jackson’s rush through the valley.
They were now, rather languidly, turning to the effort of filling the now and
unexpected call for
seventy-for thousand three years’ men. Few had as yet been
raised. Here and there through the State were the nuclei of forming
regiments and there were a few arms, but there was no adequate protection for
the Border, and none dreamed that any was necessary, Beauregard had evacuated Corinth;
Memphis had fallen; Buell was moving eastward toward
Chattanooga; the troops lately commanded by Michel held Tennessee and Northern
Alabama; Kentucky was mainly in the hands of her Home-Guards, and, under the
supervision of a State military board, was raising volunteers for the National army.
Suddenly, while the newspapers
were still trying to explain McClellan's change of base, and clamoring against.
Buell's slow advances on Chattanooga, without a word or explanation, came the
startling news that John Morgan was in Kentucky! The dispatches of Friday
afternoon, the 11th of July, announced that he had fallen upon the little post
of Tompkinsville, and killed or captured the entire garrison. By evening
it was known that the prisoners were paroled; that Morgan had advanced unopposed
to Glasgow; that he had issued a proclamation calling upon the Kentuckians to
rise; that the authorities deemed it unsafe to attempt sending through the
trains from Louisville to Nashville. by Saturday afternoon he was reported
marching on Lexington, and General Boyle, the commandant in Kentucky, was
telegraphing vigorously to Mayor Hatch, at Cincinnati, for militia to be sent in
that direction.
A public meeting was at once
called, and by nine o’clock that evening a concourse of several thousand
citizens had gathered in the Fifth Street markets-pace. Meantime more and
more urgency for aid had been expressed in successive dispatches from General
Boyle. In one he fixed Morgan's force at two thousand eight hundred; in
another he said that Morgan, with one thousand five hundred, had burned
Perryville, and was marching on Danville; again, that the forces at his command
were needed to defend Lexington! some of these dispatches were read
at the public meeting, and speeches were made by the Mayor, Judge Saffon, and
others. Finally a committee was appointed, 3 headed by
ex-Senator Geo. E. Pugh, to take such measures for organized effort as might be
possible or necessary. Before the committee could organize came word that
Governor Tod had ordered down such convalescent soldiers as could be gathered at
Camp Dennison and Camp Chase, and had sent a thousand stand of arms. A
little after midnight two hundred men belonging to the Fifty-Second Ohio
arrived.
On Sunday morning the city was thoroughly alarmed. The streets were
thronged at an early hour, and by nine o’clock another large meeting had
gathered in the Fifth Street market-space. Speeches were made by
ex-Senator Pugh, Thos. J. Gallagher, and Benj. Eggleston. It was announced
that a battalion made up of the police force would be sent to Lexington in the
evening. Arrangements were made to organize volunteer companies.
Charles F. Wilstach and Eli C. Baldwin were authorized to procure rations for
volunteers. The City Council met, resolved that it would pay any bills
incurred by the committee appointed at the public meeting, and appropriated five
thousand dollars for immediate wants. Eleven-hundred men—parts of the
Eighty-Fifth and Eighty-Sixth Ohio from Camp Chase—arrived in the afternoon and
went directly on to Lexington. The police force, under Colonel Dudley,
their chief, and an artillery company, with a single piece, under Captain Wm.
Glass, of the City Fire Department, also took the special train to Lexington in
the evening. Similar scenes were witnessed across the river, at Covington,
during the same period. While the troops were mustering, and the excited
people were volunteering, it was discovered that a brother of John Morgan was a
guest at one of the principal hotels. He made no concealment of his
relationship, or his sympathy with the rebel cause, but produced a pass from
General Boyle. He was detained.
Monday brought no further news of Morgan, and the alarm began to abate.
Kentuckians expressed the belief that he only meant to attract attention by
feints on Lexington and Frankfort, while he should make his way to Bourbon
county, and destroy the long Townsend viaduct near Paris, which might cripple
the railroad for weeks. The Secretary of War gave permission to use some
cannon which Miles Greenwood had casting for the Government, and Governor Morton
furnished ammunition for them.4 The tone of
the press may be inferred from the advice of the Gazette that the
“bands sent out to pursue Morgan” should take few prisoners—“the
fewer the better.” “They are not worthy of being treated as soldiers,”
it continued, “they are freebooters, thieves, and murderers, and should be dealt
with accordingly.”
For a day or two there followed
a state of uncertainty a to Morgan’s whereabouts, or the real nature of the
danger. In answer to an application for artillery, the Secretary of War
telegraphed that Morgan was retreating. Presently came dispatches from Kentucky
that he was still advancing. Governor .Dennison visited Cincinnati at the request
of Governor Tod, consulted with the “Committee of Public Safety,” and passed on
to Frankfort to look after the squads of Ohio troops that had been hastily
forwarded to the points of danger.
The disorderly elements of the
city took advantage of the absence of so large a portion of the police force at
Lexington. Troubles broke out. between the Irish and negroes, in which the
former were the aggressors; houses were fired, and for a little time there were
apprehensions of a serious riot. Several hundred leading property-holders met in
alarm at the Merchant’s Exchange, and took measures for organizing a force of
one thousand citizens for special service the ensuing night. For a day or two
the excitement was kept up. but there were few additional outbreaks.
While Cincinnati was thus in
confusion, and troops were hurrying to the defense of the threatened points,
John Morgan was losing no time in idle debates. He had left Knoxville, East
Tennessee, on the morning of the 4th of July; on the morning of the 9th he had
fallen upon the garrison at Tompkinsville; before one o'clock the next morning
had possession of Glasgow; by the 11th he had possession of Lebanon.. On the
Sunday (13th) on which Cincinnati had been so thoroughly aroused, he entered
Harrodsburg. Then, feigning, on Frankfort, be made haste toward Lexington,
striving, to. delay re-enforcements by sending out parties to burn bridges; and
hoping to find the town an easy capture. - Monday morning he was within fifteen
miles of Frankfort; before nightfall he was at Versailles—having marched between
three and four hundred miles in eight days.
The Columbus authorities were
asked for ammunition, and sent word that it would be furnished only on the
requisition of a United States officer commanding a post. The Indianapolis
authorities furnished it on the order of the Mayor; and the newspapers.
commented with some severity on what they called “the difference between the
red-tapeism of Columbus, and the manner of doing business at Indianapolis.”
Moving thence to Midway,
between Frankfort and Lexington, he surprised the telegraph operator, secured
his office in good order, took off the dispatches that were flying back and
forth; possessed himself of the plans and preparations of the Union officers at
Frankfort, Lexington, Louisville, and Cincinnati; and audaciously sent
dispatches in the name of the Midway operator. assuring the Lexington
authorities that Morgan was then driving in the pickets at Frank- fort! Then he
hastened to Georgetown—twelve miles from Lexington, eighteen from Frankfort, and
within easy striking distance of any point in the Blue Grass region. Here, with
the Union commanders completely mystified as to his whereabouts and purposes, he
coolly halted for a couple of days and rested his horses. Then, giving up all
thought of attacking Lexington, as he found how strongly it was garrisoned, he
decided—as his second in command naïvely tells us4—”to
make a dash at Cynthiana, on the Kentucky Central Railroad, hoping to induce the
impression that he was aiming at Cincinnati, and at the same time thoroughly
bewilder the officer in command at Lexington regarding his real intentions.”
Thither, therefore, he went; and to some purpose. The town was garrisoned by a
few hundred Kentucky cavalry, and some home guards, with Captain Glass’s
firemen’s artillery company from Cincinnati—in all perhaps five hundred men,
These were routed after some sharp fighting at the bridge and in the streets;
the gun was captured, and four hundred and twenty prisoners were taken; besides
abundance of stores, arms, and two or three hundred horses. At one o’clock lie
was off for Paris, which sent out a deputation of citizens to meet him and
surrender. By this time the forces that had been gathering at Lexington had
moved out against him with nearly double his strength;5
but the next morning he left Paris unmolested; and marching through Winchester,
Richmond, Crab Orchard, and Somerset, crossed the Cumberland again at his
leisure. He started with nine hundred men, and returned with one thousand two
hundred—having captured and paroled nearly as many, and having destroyed all the
Government arms and stores in seventeen towns.
Meanwhile the partially-lulled
excitement in Cincinnati had risen again. A great meeting had been held in Court
Street market-space, at which Judge Hugh I. Yewett. who had been the Democratic
candidate for Governor, made an earnest appeal for rapid enlistments, to redeem
the pledge of the Governor to assist Kentucky, and to prevent Morgan from
recruiting a large army in that State. Quartermaster-General Wright had followed
in a similar strain. The City Council, to silence doubts on the part of some,
had taken the oath of allegiance as a body.. The Chamber of Commerce had
memorialized the Council to make an appropriation for bounties to volunteers;
Colonel Burbank bad been appointed Military Governor of the city,6
and there had been rumors of martial Jaw and a provost-marshal. The popular
ferment largely took the shape of clamor for bounties as a means of stimulating
volunteers. The newspapers called on the Governor to “take the responsibility,”
and offer twenty-five dollars bounty for every recruit. Public-spirited citizens
made contributions for such a purpose—Mr. J. Cleves Short a thousand dollars,
Messrs. Tyler, David son & Co. one thousand two hundred, Mr. Kugler two thousand
five hundred, Mr. Jacob Elsas five hundred. Two regiments for service in
emergencies were hastily formed, which were known as the Cincinnati Reserves.
Yet, withal, the alarm never
reached the height of the excitement on Sun day, the 13th of July Morgan was
first reported marching on Lexington. The papers said they should not be
surprised any morning to see his cavalry on the hills opposite Cincinnati; but
the people seemed to entertain less apprehension. They were soon to have greater
occasion for fear.
For the invasion of Morgan was
only a forerunner. It had served to illustrate to the Rebel commanders the ease
with which their armies could be planted in Kentucky, and had set before them a
tempting vision of the rich supplies of the “Blue Grass.”
Part 2 |
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