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Of
the many stirring scenes and thrilling
accidents occasioned the the Civil War, none
so aroused the patriotic spirit of our
people, or produced so much excitement and
spread such consternation in their homes as
did the raid of Morgan's Confederate
Cavalry through this county in July, 1863.
This dashing cavalryman had crossed the Ohio
at Brandenburg, Kentucky, on the eighth,
with a force of about 2500 all told, and
entered upon "his most famous raid," through
southern Indiana and Ohio, which awakened
the people of those regions to the
alarums, if not the horrors of war.
This daring raid was undertaken chiefly for
the purpose of relieving General Bragg,
then near Tullahoma, Tennessee, from a
threatened concentration of the forces of
Burnside, Judah, and Rosecrans,
against him, and which would have
overpowered and destroyed his army as then
situated. "General Morgan urged, that
the scare and the clamor in the states he
proposed to invade, would be so great, that
the Administration would be compelled to
furnish the troops that would be called
for," and, as these would of necessity be
supplied from Judah's or Burnside's
forces, the needed relief of Bragg's
army would be immediately obtained.
General Bragg dissented, and ordered
Morgan to make the raid through
Kentucky, granting permission to go
"anywhere north of the Tennessee;" but as
Indiana and Ohio are north of that river,
Morgan began perfecting plans to put in
execution his long cherished desire to
invade the North. His plans, briefly,
were to make a feint against Louisville,
then cross the Ohio, threaten Indianapolis,
then Cincinnati, swing his forces round that
city, and then raid the southern
counties of Ohio to Buffington Island, then
recross the Ohio and join Lee's
forces then threatening Pennsylvania.
And, astounding as these plans were, they
would have been successfully executed but
for an hour's delay in reaching the ford on
the upper Ohio, notwithstanding an
unprecedented rise in the Ohio, at that
season of the year, which enabled the
transports to land troops at that point to
contest the crossing. A portion of his
command did make the crossing, and escape
through the country to the Confederate
lines. Morgan's command
consisting of the first and second brigades
of cavalry, with a few pieces of light
artillery, was but a little more than a
"mounted guard" in military terms, yet to
our raw militia it was a great army, and
drew after him from first to last some
50,000 pursuers.
To prepare the more timid of our people for a thorough
fright, it had been rumored for a year or
more that General John H. Morgan's
cavalry in overwhelming force was preparing
to invade Ohio. The "home guards" had,
time and again, been called out to defend
the towns along the Ohio River against
contemplated assaults from Morgan's
forces. The little "tin-clad" gunboats
kept constant patrol along our river front,
and frequent false alarms were sounded "just
to steady the nerves" of the expectant
citizens. The bloody encounter of a
detachment of Morgan's cavalry, under the
fiery Colonel Duke, with a body of militia
at Augusta, Kentucky, lent color to the
rumor of Morgan's contemplated
invasion, and kept our people on the tiptoe
of expectancy for months before his actual
coming. So when the invading forces
did cross the Ohio, and successfully pass
Cincinnati where was concentrated a large
force under Burnside, and the head of
the marauding column pointed eastward up the
river our people began to realize something
of the blight cast by an invading army, and
to feel their utter helplessness as to means
to thwart the invaders in their course.
Again rumor with her many tongues and
countless eyes, heralded in advance of the
invaders, such awful scenes of fire, murder,
and rapine, as rumor only ever beholds.
Looking back now over the line of travel of the
invaders, and noting in the light of history
the depredations really committed, it is
astonishing how insignificant was the injury
done. There was one dwelling, a few
railroad bridges, and a park of government
wagons burned; and, one non-combatant
killed, in the 300 miles raiding from
Corydon, Indiana, to Piketon, Ohio.
It is true that many village stores were pillaged,
seemingly for diversion, certainly not, in
most instances, for gain. "Calico was
the staple article of appropriation," says
Duke, "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, until an officer made
him throw it away. Although the
weather was intensely warm, another, still,
slung seven pairs of skates around his neck,
and chuckled over his acquisition. I
saw very few articles of real value taken.
They pillage like boys robbing an orchard.
I would not have believed that such a
passion could have been developed, so
ludicrously among civilized men. At
Piketon, Ohio, 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 awhile, like children tired
of their toys."
The most serious inconvenience occasioned our people by
this raid was the loss of their best horses.
The raids were hard pressed by General
Hobson with three thousand cavalry, and
in order to out-distance their pursues,
picked up for the purpose, the best horses
along the route. And to add to this
loss, the good horses that had been secreted
from the raiders, were seized the next day
when brought in from their hiding places, by
Hobson's soldiers. In almost
every instance where a horse was taken by
either Morgan's or Hobson's
men, one was left in its stead, sore-footed
and worn down, but otherwise generally a
good horse. And the people would not
have been greatly dissatisfied with these
exchanges, had they been permitted to retain
the horses left with them. But no
sooner were the sore and tired-out animals
recruited by those in whose care they had
been left, than the ever officious, and too
often unscrupulous, provost marshal came and
claimed all such horses as the property of
the government, and took them away.
This act of injustice, for but few of these
horses were branded and really belonged to
the government, left many a man in the midst
of harvest and with crops to cultivate,
without a team or the means of procuring
one. In some few instances when the
persons stood for their rights against the
cupidity of the provost marshal, they were
permitted to retain as their own the horses
left with them. And some there were,
who believing that the "greatest thief gets
the most booty," picked up the better horses
abandoned by the armies, and made off with
them to distant localities beyond reach of
the provost marshal, and there disposed of
them.
In his "History of Morgan's Cavalry," General
Duke graphically describes the panic the
approach of the invaders produced in the
communities through which they passed.
He says: "A great fear had fallen upon the
inhabitants. They had left their
houses with doors wide open and unlocked
larders, and had fled to the thickets and
caves of the hills. At the house at
which I stopped, everything was just in the
condition the fugitive owners had left it a
few hours before. A bright fire was
blazing upon the kitchen hearth, bread half
made up was in the tray, and many
indications convinced us we had interrupted
preparations for a meal. The chickens
were strolling before the door with a
confidence that was touching but misplaced."
From Williamsburg in Clermont County, Colonel Dick
Morgan, with about 500 men made a
movement towards Ripley in Brown County,
where the "home guards" were assembled form
all the surrounding country to repel the
attack of Morgan and prevent his
escape across the river at that point.
This was only a feint on the part of the
raiders, and served their purpose admirably,
they meeting with no opposition through
Brown and Adams counties. Colonel
Morgan passed by the way of Georgetown,
Russellville, and Decatur, entering Adams
County at *Eckmansville.
Here a sad occurrence took place. A
foolish, hot-headed resident of Eckmansville,
Dr. Van Meter, fired at a squad of
the raiders and then hid himself form sight.
An old man named William Johnson was
near the point from which the shot had been
fired, with an ax on his shoulder, which
glistening in the sun was mistaken by the
raiders for a gun, and supposing him to be
the assailant, they fired upon him and
instantly killed him. When the raiders
learned their mistake, they made dire
threats against the little village and its
inhabitants, declaring they would burn every
house in it, unless their assailant was
pointed out to them. Rev. David
McDill now of Xenia, was accused of
knowing the offender and his hiding place,
and was threatened with death if he did not
divulge his whereabouts. But he
steadfastly refused, was made prisoner, put
astride a "lonesome mule" and taken as far
as Locust Grove, when the next morning he
was released and permitted to return to his
home. Dr. Van Meter escaped
summary punishment through the Scotch
stubbornness of his friend Rev. McDill.
From Eckmansville, the raiders passed to Cherry
Fork, Youngsville, Harshaville, Dunkinsville,
and Dunbarton, where they encamped on the
night of the 15th, and joined the main body
under General Morgan and Basil
Duke, second in command, who had taken
their forces from Williamsburg through Mt.
Orab, Sardinia, Winchester, Harshaville,
Unity, Dunbarton and Locust Grove. At
Winchester, General Morgan and his
staff dined and spent some time resting in
the town. (See history of Winchester
Township in this volume. Also,
"Treason Trial in Ohio" this volume.)
Our people were wrought up to a high pitch of
excitement, and many ridiculous things were
done. At West Union a tree was felled
across the road at the foot of the hill
below "Rock Spring," to prevent the raiders
from entering the town, although their
nearest approach to the town was at Unity.
One excitable matron tied up some bed clothes in a
feather bed and deposited the bundle behind
the gooseberry bushes in the garden.
Another fled to a near-by corn field with a
Seth Thomas brass clock, and hid it
in a small ravine.
An over-anxious watcher of some horses hid in a
thicket, thinking he could get a better view
of the surrounding country by climbing to
the top of a large growth sapling near by,
who, observing some horsemen at a distance,
became panicky upon reflection that he might
be mistaken for a sharpshooter, let go his
hold, and tumbled to the ground, some thirty
feet, nearly breaking his neck in the fall.
History records the fact that a terrified matron in a
town forty miles from the rebel route, in
her husband's absence, resolved to protect
the family carriage horse at all hazards,
and knowing no safe 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 distance peals of
artillery, and kept half the citizens awake
and watching for Morgan's entrance.
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* The author was
informed by a Mr. Patton, a former
resident of Eckmansville, that a lone
cavalryman rode into the village on the
Russellville road, and discovering Dr.
Van Meter with a musket in his hands,
ordered him to surrender, which Van Meter
refused to do. Both fired at the same
moment and William Johnson, being
within the range of their shots, was struck
by a ball and killed. It is doubtful
which killed him. |
