"Morgan's Men," a Narrative of Personal Experiences

I was asked by Col. Milton, our commander, to give a “talk” to our Camp this evening. I see, though, in his notices which he sent out—I received one—and in the newspapers, he has dignified what I am to say to you as an “address.” I will leave it to you, after I get through, whether it is one or the other, or both.

I regret that I have not had an opportunity to prepare much that would be worth while to my Comrades who are here to-night, but will deal with some of my own experiences during the Civil War and give you a narrative of them. This I will undertake to do, with the hope my account may prove somewhat interesting to you. I can only vouch for the truthfulness of what I shall detail from my own personal knowledge.

There is no tie of friendship so strong and lasting as that wrought by a common service among soldiers engaged in a common cause. Time and distance are powerless to sever such a tie or to erase from memory the vivid recollections of dangers encountered and hardships endured.

On a September night nearly fifty-eight years ago, John H. Morgan led forth from the City of Lexington his little squadron of faithful followers, who formed the nucleus of that gallant command which afterward, under his matchless leadership, executed so many brilliant military achievements and won for him and themselves imperishable renown. Gen. Morgan’s bold, original, and skillful methods of warfare attracted the admiration of thousands of young men in Kentucky, and even other States, who enthusiastically gathered under his banner.

EARLY TRAINING. ADVOCATE OF STATE RIGHTS.

As already stated, I propose on this occasion to give an account of some of my own experiences as one of Morgan’s Men. A native of Bath County, Ky., when a boy nine years old, I became a resident of Putnam County, Ind., to which State my father removed in the autumn of 1851. In the presidential campaign of 1860, at the age of eighteen, I canvassed my County for Breckinridge and Lane. There were three other young men representing the tickets of Abraham Lincoln, John Bell and Stephen A. Douglas, respectively. We styled ourselves: “The Hoosier Boys—All Parties Represented,” and canvassed the County, speaking on Saturday afternoons at as many as ten or a dozen points before the day of election.

When the War between the States came on, I was an earnest advocate of State rights, and determined to embrace the first opportunity offered to go South and enlist in that cause, which I believed to be right. Three of my brothers were in the Federal army, but I could not conscientiously go with them.

LEAVING INDIANA TO JOIN THE CONFEDERATE ARMY.

On September 18, 1862, after the battle of Big Hill, near Richmond, Ky., and the occupation of this State by the forces of Gens. Smith and Marshall, I put aside the study of law, bade farewell to my parents, and left Indiana to join the Confederate army. I came to Cincinnati while it was under martial law, passed the pickets above the city, in a countryman’s market wagon, took a boat at New Richmond, Ohio, and landed on a Sunday morning at Augusta, Ky. That day I attended Sunday-school in Augusta, and walked to Milton, in Bracken County, where I stayed all night. The next day I reached Cynthiana, and found there the first confederate soldiers I ever saw, being a portion of Morgan’s Men under Col. Basil W. Duke. I remember I was struck with the odd appearance of some of these soldiers, particularly observing their large rattling spurs and broad-brimmed hats, many of which were pinned up on one side with a crescent or star.

DUKE’S FIGHT AT AUGUSTA. KY.

This was but a few days before Col. Duke’s desperate fight at Augusta.

An incident occurs to my mind here. Ten years later I was Democratic Elector for the Ninth Congressional District, making a campaign in behalf of Greeley and Brown, and Augusta was one of my points to speak. While at the hotel that night, a young man came to my room and that of Hon. John D. Young, who was the Democratic candidate for Congress and traveling with me, and he told us all about the fight of Col. Duke, what a bloody affair it was, and how the people had noticed a young man a few days before passing through Augusta and going to Sunday-school, and they attributed Duke’s plans to that young man’s story of how conditions were in Augusta; in other words, that he had acted as a spy for Duke. I said, “Young man, you are mistaken about that matter and your people are mistaken. I was the lad that came through your town and went to Sunday-school, but I had then no idea of Duke’s contemplated fight whatever, and did not know anything about it until after it occurred, so you are all laboring under a mistake in thinking I had anything to do with it.”

ENLISTMENT IN THE CONFEDERATE ARMY.

I arrived at Mount Sterling, and set foot “on my native heath,” in Bath County, within a week after my departure from Indiana.

On October 7, 1862, I enlisted at Sharpsburg in Capt. G. M. Coleman’s company, composed chiefly of my boyhood schoolmates and belonging to Maj. Robert G. Stoner’s battalion of cavalry, which was subsequently, in Middle Tennessee, consolidated with Maj. Wm. C. P. Breckinridge’s battalion, thus forming the 9th Kentucky Regiment in Morgan’s command.

I was appointed sergeant major of Maj. Stoner’s battalion, and served in that capacity until the consolidation mentioned, when I became ordnance sergeant of the regiment. Since the War I have been promoted to the position of “Colonel,” but I never was a Commissioned officer.

THE BATTLE AT HARTSVILLE.

Sixty days after my enlistment our regiment was engaged in its first fight at Hartsville, Tenn., where Col. Morgan won his commission as brigadier general and achieved, perhaps, his most brilliant victory by killing and wounding over four hundred of the enemy and capturing two splendid Parrott guns with more than two thousand prisoners. On the day after this battle, I wrote a letter to my father and mother (the original of which has been preserved), headed as follows: “In camp two miles from Gen. Morgan’s headquarters and eight miles from Murfreesboro on the Lebanon Pike, Monday, December 8, 1862.” The fight occurred on Sunday.

Among other things, I gave in this letter the following account of our engagement at Hartsville, which may serve to illustrate the exuberance of spirits felt over that victory by a soldier of twenty years of age, after only two months’ service:

We’ve had only one battle yet, and that was on yesterday at Hartsville, in this State. I’ll give you a short description of it. Day before yesterday morning at nine o’clock we left camp with all of Morgan’s Brigade, except two regiments (Duke’s and Gano’s), and also the Ninth and Second Kentucky Regiments of Gen Roger Hanson’s brigade of infantry—in all about twenty-five hundred men, with five or six pieces of artillery. We marched through Lebanon, and went into camp after traveling thirty-four miles. Our battalion and two pieces of artillery were within four miles of the enemy. The other portions of our force took another route, crossing the Cumberland in the night and getting in the enemy’s rear. We left camp after sleeping one hour and a half, and got in position in five hundred yards of the enemy at five o’clock in the morning, before it was light. This hour was set by Morgan to begin the attack on the enemy on all sides; and well was it carried out, Morgan’s portion firing the first gun. The firing soon became general, and of all the fighting ever done that was the hottest for an hour and fifteen minutes. The bombs fell thick and fast over our heads, while Morgan’s men yelled at every step, we all closing in on the Yankees. I fired my gun only two or three times. We took the whole force prisoners, about twenty-two hundred men, the 10th Illinois, 106th and 108th Ohio, and two hundred Indiana cavalrymen, with two pieces of artillery. We took also all their small arms, wagons, etc.

Then occurs in this letter what may seem now somewhat ludicrous, but it is here and I will read it:

I captured a splendid overcoat, lined through and through, a fine black cloth coat, a pair of new woolen socks, a horse muzzle to feed in, an Enfield rifle, a lot of pewter plates, knives and forks, a good supply of smoking tobacco, an extra good cavalry saddle, a halter, and a pair of buckskin gloves, lined with lamb’s wool—all of which things I needed.

The officers of the forces captured were paroled and sent through the lines. One of them promised to see that this letter reached its destination, and in it I stated:

I’ll tell you how I’ve met with a chance to send this to you. It is by a very gentlemanly Yankee lieutenant whom we captured yesterday who says he’ll mail it to you from Nashville, and I think he’ll be as good as his word. I shall leave it unsealed, and he’ll get it through for me without trouble, I think.

But he failed to discharge the trust he had assumed. Some three weeks afterwards it was found at Camp Chase, Ohio, and sent to my father by a man named Samuel Kennedy.

THE CHRISTMAS RAID INTO KENTUCKY.

On our celebrated raid into Kentucky during the Christmas holidays of 1862 we captured at Muldraugh’s Hill an Indiana regiment of about eight hundred men, who were recruited principally in Putnam County, many of whom were my old friends and acquaintances. I saw and conversed with a number of them while prisoners in our charge, and had my fellow-soldiers show them as much kindness as possible under the circumstances. This regiment had only a few months before been taken prisoners at Big Hill, Ky., and after being exchanged were armed with new Enfield rifles, all of which fell into our boys’ hands and took the place of arms much inferior.

That was my first acquaintance with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. We burned all the trestles on Muldraugh’s Hill, and thus cut the connections of the Federal army in Tennessee.

THE INDIANA AND OHIO RAID.

There are doubtless some here to-night who were on Morgan’s remarkable raid into Indiana and Ohio, nearly fifty-six years ago. The first brigade crossed the Cumberland River at Burksville, Ky., July 2, 1863, when it was out of its banks, floating driftwood, and fully a quarter of a mile wide. The crossing of our twenty-four hundred men and horses was effected by unsaddling and driving the horses into the swollen stream, twenty or thirty at a time, and letting them swim to the opposite bank, where they were caught and hitched, while the men went over in two flat-boats and a couple of indifferent canoes. I shall never forget the perilous position I was in on that occasion. There were twelve of us, who crossed over between sundown and dark, with our twelve saddles in one canoe. The surging waters came lapping up to within three inches of the edges of the canoe, and on the upper side once in a while they splashed in. The two men at the oars were inexperienced, and made frequent mistakes during the passage, but finally landed us safely on this side. I breathed much freer when I got out.

On this raid, after the disastrous attack of July 4, upon the stockade at Green River bridge, where we lost so many brave officers and men, we, the next day, drove Col. Charles Hanson’s infantry regiment, the 20th Kentucky, into the brick depot at Lebanon, Ky. Our troops surrounded the building, but were greatly exposed to the enemy’s fire, and suffered under the heat of a broiling sun for four hours. Some of our men concealed themselves by lying down in or behind the tents just vacated by the Federal troops. When the order was given by Gen. Morgan to charge the enemy, I witnessed an admirable exhibition of courage on the part of Col. D. Howard Smith. He mounted his horse and led the assault himself, calling on us to follow him, in plain view of the enemy and under a terrific fire from the depot, not exceeding a hundred yards from our advancing columns. On the other side of the building, in the charge of the Second Kentucky, just before the surrender, Lieut. Thomas Morgan, a younger brother of Gen. Morgan was killed—shot through the heart. He was idolized by his regiment, and many of his comrades, infuriated by his death, in the excitement of the moment, would have shown no quarter to the Federal soldiers had it not been for the noble and magnanimous conduct of Gen. Morgan himself. Although stricken with grief over the lifeless body of his favorite brother, and with his eyes filled with tears, I saw him rush to the front inside the depot, and with drawn pistol in hand he stood between Col. Hanson’s men and his own, and declared he would shoot down the first one of his own men who molested a prisoner. And here I may venture the assertion that no officer in either army, as far as my knowledge extends, was kinder to prisoners or more considerate of their rights than Gen. Morgan.