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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (July 22, 1963)
Gen. Morgan's Spectacular Raid FRIGHTENED THREE STATES - John Hunt Morgan was a brigadier general of cavalry in the Confederate Army of Ten nessee. A resident of Kentucky, Morgan moved his militia company south when that state became pro-north. He made a series of raids from Tennessee to Kentucky with great success. He started his longest - and last - raid on July 2, 1863. It was to be cal led the Ohio Raid and took him farther north than any other Confederate unit. But the Federal cavalry closed in on Morgan at Beaver Creek, Ohio, where with only 400 men of the 2,600 with which he started, Mor gan surrendered. In this drawing from the Library of Congress collection, Morgan and his men are depicted in an Indiana town. (UPI) By MERTON T. AKERS UPI Correspondent John Hunt Morgan was a first-rate fighting man. He was a brigadier general of cavalry in the Confederate Army of Tennessee command ed by Gen. Braxton Bragg. He fought his way farther north than any other Confederate commander in the Civil War, farther north than Gen. Rob ert E. Lee's Army of North ern Virginia penetrated in his second invasion which failed on Cemetery Ridge at Gettys burg. Morgan was made of the same stuff as other famous Rebel cavalry raiders. He had much of Jeb Stuart's flair for the spectacular - plummed hats, high boots and flowing whiskers. He shared with Na than Bedford Forrest the abil ity to ride fast, hit hard and baffle pursuit. Like John S. Mosby he could outguess Fed eral cavalry and raid almost at will. All of these qualities, which made him the darling of the Confederacy for a time, he came by without formal mili tary training. His only mili tary service before the Civil War was a short stint in the Mexican War as a lieutenant. Moved To Kentucky He was born in Huntsville, Ala.. June 1. 1825. By 1830 his father had moved to Lex ington, Ky., where he worked for his father-in-law, John Hunt, a planter and race horse breeder who left a for tune of nearly a milion dol lars. - Morgan was reared in the Blue Grass tradition of fast horses, bourbon whisky, gam ing and dueling. He attended Transylvania College in Lex ington where President Jef ferson Davis of the Confed eracy had gone to school. Near the end of his sec ond year he was suspended from college, the reason not noted on the records. He nev ed returned. The start of the war found Morgan a substantial business man in Lexington and captain of a militia company. When Kentucky proclaim ed itself "neutral" after Fort Sumter, Morgan became im patient to start fighting but the time did not seem right and he kept drilling his com pany. The day the first battle of Bull Run was fought - July 21, 1861 - his invalid wife, Rebecca, died. First Tricked Enemy In September, Kentucky definitely having turned pro Union, Morgan first tricked the enemy. His company was pro-uon-federate in that divided state. The pro-Union state authori ties ordered him to turn in Senate Committee Schedules Witness Washington-mril-Roy Wil kins today was scheduled as the first Negro witness to testify before Congress on President Kennedy's bill 'o ban discrimination in hotels, motels, resturants and other public facilities engaged in in- j terstate business. Wilkins. executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Col ored People, was to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee. The committee has been studying only the public ac commodations of the admin istrator's omnibus civil rights package. Other parts of the bill were being taken up by the Senate Judiciary Commit tee and a House Judiciary Committee. House To Be Asked To Reconsider Action Washington the company's arms. Morgan hid the arms and sent back packing cases full of stones instead. The day after Federal troops occupied Lexington, Morgan loaded the guns on wagons, covered them with hay and drove them out of town under the noses of the Union troops. Then with his company he marched south to a scouting and raiding career. After the battle of Shiloh, Morgan made three raids from Tennessee into Ken tucky, one in July '62, anoth er in October of the same year and the third at New Year's time. On the first raid with 800 ' ,ft eVv . ...f aill r f --', jaiiMrxr 000 miles over Kentucky, cap tured and paroled 1,200 pris oners and destroyed mounds of supplies, losing about 100 men. His cenod raid was smaller but this time he occupied his hometown of Lexington. The third raid with about 4,000 men bagged 1,887 pris oners with the loss of only 2 killed and 24 wounded. This time he destroyed about S2 million worth of supplies. Started Ohio Raid He started his last and long est expedition - called the Ohio Raid - on July 2. 1863. Bragg had authorized him to raid only in Kentucky to hamper operations of Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rose crans who was threatening Chattanooga, Tenn. Bragg ve toed Morgan's plan to strike across the Ohio River into the untouched areas of In diana and Ohio. But' Morgan had other Ideas. With 2,460 men and four guns Morgan eluded 10,000 Federal cavalry who were supposed to be on guard against such raids, crossed the Cumberland River at Burkesville, Ky., and headed north. On July 4 he came to Tebbs Bend on the Green River and his first fight. He ran into a small but determined Union regiment of about 400 men, the 25th Michigan command ed by Col Orlando H. Moore, another fighting man. The Michiganders were strongly entrenched. In his best raiding style Morgan sent a flag of truce to Moore and demanded a sur render. "If this were any other day, I might, but on the Fourth of July, I must have a brush first," Moore replied. Morgan assaulted Moore's intrenchments with his troop ers dismounted. The 11th Kentucky was repulsed. The 5th Kentucky followed and suffered the same fate. That was enough for Mor gan. He pulled out his troops and rode around the Federals with 36 killed and about 50 wounded. The Federals lost 9 killed and 26 wounded, one of whom was Lizzie Compton, a Canadian girl who had been successfully masquerading until a surgeon ripped open her shirt to probe a shoulder wound. Miss Compton recov ered and was discharged with honor. . Brother Killed The next day Morgan fought the Federals again at Lebanon, Ky., where his brother, Tom, was killed. Here he took 400 prisoners and pushed north again to the Ohio River where he crossed on July 8 at Brandenburg, Ky., on two captured steamers. A day later he was in Croy don, Ind., where he learned from an innkeeper's daughter that Lee had failed at Gettys burg and that Vicksburg had surrendered. This dashed Morgan's hopes that he might ride east into Pennsylvania and join with Lee. But he pushed on. By this time all of Indiana and much of Ohio was con fused and fearful. Troops were called from Michigan and Illinois and from as far away as Kansas. Indianapolis shored up its defenses. Farmers hid their horses. Women and children took to the woods. Home Guards mustered at crossroads with shotguns and flintlocks. As often as they gathered they were brushed aside by Mor gan's men but each skirmish slowed the raiders and speed was essential. The flying columns rode Into Salem, Ind., turned northeast and entered Ohio at Harrison above Cincinnati. They never stopped as they skirted Cincinnati as that was Federal headquarters for the area and swarmed with troops. Morgan's men rode 95 miles in 35 hours without rest or food, stopping only to skir mish. Probably no cavalry ever rode that far in as short a time. ' ; But Federal Cavalry, which had been riding hither and yon over three stales with no success, began to close in as Morgan pushed east across Ohio parallel to the river, stopping only to remove bar ricades and fight out of Home Guard ambushcades. Morgan headed for Bluff lngton Island in the Ohio be low Portland, Ohio. Here he thought he could cross the river and return to the South. But he was trapped on July 19 by Federal cavalry and gunboats. The battle went against him and about 700 of his men, under Col. Basil Duke, his brother-in-law, sur rendered. Auout 300 escaped across the river. Rod North As Duke fought the Feder als Morgan cut his way out with about 1,000 men and rode north. On Sunday July 19 the raid came to an end at Beaver Creek, Ohio, near New Lis bon. This was Morgan's far thest north point. Two fresh Union cavalry regiments caught up with him. He now had only about 400 men and he surrendered without another fight. . Of the 2,460 men Morgan started with about 400 es caped. The rest were cap tured, killed, wounded, strag gled or deserted. He had rid den about 1,000 miles and ov erall his men averaged about 20 hours per day in the sad dle for the 25 days of the raid. What did Morgan accom plish? Not much, militarily. He occupied some indefinite numbers of troops who might SECTION B Medford PAGES 1 to ! Tribune, MEDFORD, OREGON. MONDAY, JULY 22, 1963 have reinforced Rosecrans. He burned railroad stations and bridges and frightened two stales. But the raid was spectacu lar. And that was what Mor gan liked. Moving Equipment For RENT At A to Z Rental 1213 N. Rionid 779-1474 Good Idea. Consolidate your debts. Lump them together and pay them off with a cash loan from us. Chances am your one monthly payment will be a lot less than you'rt paying out every month right now, CITY FINANCE COMPANY 185 E. Main St. Phone: 482-243 1, Ashland Life insurance available on all loans at low group rates 2522 TO 150022 The com- - ilTIi Unup Foreign A"' mittce will be asked to recon sider its action reiecting r.? .trirtions on U. S. foreign aid to Indonesia, it was learned Saturday. The move, sparked by aid supporters who fear the Hou?e would vote tougher limita tions it the committee does not act, if expected early this week. SJfs big HI for Oregon's economy in Wm 1. 2' 1. $11,500,000 for 1,150 new flat cars, being built in Oregon primarily for movement of finished lumber and other Oregon forest products. Builder of these 63-foot-long cars is Gunderson Bros. Engineering Corp., Portland. Initial 400-car order is currently being delivered. Remaining 750 cars will be placed in service during the next sev eral months. !. Conversion of 750 standard box cars to wide-door design for shipments of Oregon plywood. The new 10-foot doors on these 40-foot-long cars permit fast mechanical loading and unloading. Diagonal door stripe codes cars for immediate return to Oregon. 3. Another 500 dOUble-dOOr bOX Cars, added to S.P.'s wide-door fleet in 1962, and now assigned to Oregon service for hauling plywood and packaged lumber. Like the newly converted wide-door box cars, these 50-foot-long, "yellow door" cars say, "Send me back to Oregon.' 4. 1,300 new "king-sized" Hydra-Cushion box cars being delivered to S.P. this summer and fall, are well suited for carrying paper, canned goods, and other Oregon products needing extra protection. These new 60-foot carB can carry twenty percent more freight than 50-foot box cars. 1, New "floating-load" tie-dOWn technique can speed loading and reduce shipping costs for other forest products besides finished lumber. Here, twenty huge rolls of paperboard ride secure and protected on one of S.P.'s new 63-foot, Oregon-built fiat cars. t'hese latest additions to the Southern Pacific freight fleet are part of S.P.'s expanded, multi-million dollar program to provide Oregon industries with the special equipment they need to move Oregon products to market. Moreover, the stepped-up order for flat cars represents a significant contri bution to Oregon's economy, both in dollar volume and in use of Oregon materials and manpower. Overall, these new S.P. equipment purchases boost Southern Pacific's expenditures above $187 million for more than 19,000 new freight cars in the past six years. 3 5, o em pacific Serving the Golden Empire with TRAINS . TRUCKS PIGGYBACK PIPELINES
