The Twenty-Five Days of Morgan - July 17, 1863

Brigadier General John H. Morgan’s Division of Confederate cavalrymen and artillerymen scour Jackson, Ohio, this morning for food, horses, and equipment. The looting is severe. The Rebels break into stores and steal items of military value and non-military value. Women’s ribbons decorate the raiders’ dirty hats, while women’s veils reduce the dust flying into their eyes and mouths. General Morgan had read an article in the Unionist Jackson Standard newspaper last evening in Piketon that had called him and his men “the scum of the South.” Morgan allows his soldiers to retaliate by destroying the printing press of the Jackson Standard newspaper office and throwing its letterpress type out onto the street.

A few raiders make the mistake of stealing the ritual robes from the Jackson Masonic Lodge, but General Morgan learns of this and forces the men to return the robes immediately. In general, Morgan has strict rules that prevent his men from looting religious items. Churches and lodges may lose their horses and food to the Rebels, but they will not find their religious icons, ceremonial wares, or vestments missing. On the other hand, Morgan levies a $2,300 ransom on the Jackson flour mills, which the owners reluctantly pay, or else they would see their workplaces go up in flames. Mills possess military value. Flour from these mills will be used to feed the Union volunteers and militia who are chasing the raiders.

Around 10:00 am, Colonel Adam Johnson heads his 910-man Second Brigade on the road southeast to Winchester (Rocky Hill), Ohio. Morgan has instructed Johnson to rendezvous with Duke near Middleport, Ohio. Johnson’s objective is to search for possible Ohio River fords and to be on the lookout for Brigadier General Henry Judah’s Union cavalry brigade, which intercepted Federal telegrams have indicated is riding somewhere northeast of Portsmouth. About noon, Morgan’s aide finishes paroling the three hundred home guards and other Union men who had defied the raiders and, as a result, had spent the night at the county fairgrounds. Soon after, General Morgan and Colonel Duke lead the 1,040-man First Brigade northeast on the Berlin Road. Their rearguard sets fire to the Salt Lick Creek Bridge. By 2:00 pm, all the raiders have left Jackson.

Colonel Benjamin P. Runkle and 1,700 untrained militiamen from Chillicothe, Ohio, detrain at Hamden, Ohio, at 2:00 am. They rest at Hamden, waiting for reinforcements that never show, and then march southward at dawn on the road to Berlin Crossroads. Along the six-mile path, about two hundred of the militiamen desert or fall by the wayside exhausted. By the time Runkle reaches Berlin Crossroads around 7:00 am, only 1,500 militiamen remain. Runkle decides to make a stand here before he loses any more of his force. They form a double-ranked line on the heights overlooking the east side of the village, which boasts a large flour mill and a station on Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad. The militiamen have no artillery or cavalry to support them. They nervously wait for Morgan’s appearance.

Colonel Duke’s brigade videttes arrive on the west side of town at approximately 11:00 am. A group of Confederate scouts, led by Tom Murphy, rides into the crossroads intersection only a few yards away from the hiding Union militiamen. A Federal picket calls upon them to halt. Murphy wheels around in his saddle to fire, and the militiamen shoot him off his horse. The scouts gallop back to Morgan to tell him that a sizeable enemy force is ensconced in the woods north and east of town.

General Morgan is afraid Runkle has artillery with him. Morgan waits for Lieutenant Elias Lawrence’s two Parrott rifles to come up from the middle of the column, and he orders Lawrence to unlimber them on a hill west of town. From noon until sometime before 1:00 pm, Lawrence fires several cannon shots at the blue line on the distant heights, but no Union artillery shells are fired in return. Runkle’s men, however, are terrified, and it takes all his officers’ strength to keep them from running. They fall back about two hundred yards to a sheltered area under the brow of the hill.

Satisfied that no Union artillery is present, Morgan directs Duke to attack the enemy skirmish line, particularly the portion positioned in a point of woods on Runkle’s right flank. The skirmishing is brisk, and Duke’s brigade incurs casualties. Duke decides to outflank the militiamen and clear them off the road to Wilkesville, Ohio. The Confederate veterans, who fight mounted this time, slowly push the inexperienced militiamen into the woods northeast of Berlin and onto a small lane that leads beyond. The Wilkesville Road is open; by 2:00 pm, General Morgan and Duke’s brigade depart the battlefield to continue their journey eastward. Runkle loses an undisclosed number of wounded Union men, while the raiders suffer four killed and ten wounded. The Confederate dead would be buried in unmarked graves at Salem Church.

While Morgan and Duke march across Jackson and Vinton counties through Middleton (Dawkins Mill) and Hickory Ridge, Colonel Johnson with his brigade rides through Winchester (Rocky Hill) toward Gallia County. Johnson’s flankers follow parallel routes, one group going to Camba (Irwin’s Station) and Limestone Furnace, and another heading directly to Keystone Furnace, the appointed rendezvous. Johnson leads the main column to Vega. Here, in the afternoon, sixty raiders coming from Limestone Furnace run into Companies C and K of Colonel James I. David’s 9th Michigan Cavalry of Brigadier General Judah’s brigade. In the brief running fight known as the skirmish at Centerville or Vega, one Confederate is killed. There are no Union casualties. However, Johnson now is alerted to the presence of General Judah’s force, and the Michigan cavalrymen return similar news to Judah. Judah has made contact with Morgan’s Division at last!

Colonel Johnson combines his forces at Keystone Furnace and continues east to Vinton, Ohio, where Johnson and his lead troopers camp for the night. The rear guard spends the evening at Keystone Furnace.

Morgan and Duke’s men encounter many fallen-tree barriers today across the road to Wilkesville. Duke’s axe men work hard to clear the trees from their path to allow the artillery and wagon train to move on. The region is as remote and rough as Pike County, and the column slows to a crawl. Morgan’s troopers disperse some home guards and enter Wilkesville, Ohio, just before dark. The raiders set up camp throughout the town and in the farm fields surrounding it. They loot the stores for provisions and take the mail from the post office. General Morgan makes his headquarters at the house of Dr. William C. Cline, the richest man in town.

Dr. Cline’s wife is Ruth Virginia Althar Cline, who is a cousin of John H. Morgan. The Clines are anti-slavery proponents, but Morgan trusts them because Ruth is family. Morgan hands over to them a significant sum of the money he has stolen on the raid, partly to thank them for their hospitality and to pay for his men’s looting of the Clines’ store, and partly because he feels he will not need it after he leaves Ohio tomorrow. The general gets a good night’s rest in the comfort of the Cline home. Soon after the war, the Clines will replace their clapboard house with a fine brick one, some say, with the use of this stolen money.

Meanwhile, General Judah’s column, reinforced by mounted militiamen from Portsmouth and other towns it passes by, continues its night march through Sciotoville, Scioto Furnace, Webster, and Oak Hill until it reaches Centerville, where Judah encamps his men for the night in line of battle. It is during his stay at Centerville that his flankers from the Michigan Cavalry Brigade encounter Johnson’s troopers at Vega (Veja), which is located five miles northwest of Centerville. Judah is overjoyed when he receives the report from the Wolverines that they have fought Morgan’s men. Encouraged by the news, Judah will move his men in the morning across Gallia County toward Pomeroy, Ohio. For now, Judah maintains telegraph silence with Burnside.

Based on intelligence gathered from a captured prisoner, today Major General Ambrose Burnside orders Colonel William R. Putnam to move militia to Buffington Island, where a well-known low-water ford of the Ohio River exists. It will be Burnside’s best preemptive decision during the raid.

The quick-thinking Colonel Putnam immediately sends on the steamboat Henry Logan a company of Middleport militia under Captain R. B. Wilson and an artillery company under Wilson’s subordinate, Captain George Woodyard, from Camp Marietta, Ohio, to Blennerhassett Island. Defending the ford here are 250 untried soldiers composed of Marietta militia infantry, mounted militia scouts, volunteers from Company A of the 128th Ohio Infantry, and two artillery pieces of Lt. Nye’s Harmar Battery. Captain D. L. Wood, 18th U.S. Infantry, commands this small force entrenched at Blennerhassett Ford. Putnam’s orders instruct Wood to board his men and artillery on the steamboat with Wilson’s troops and travel downriver to Buffington Island Ford, where they will guard that key Ohio River crossing. Wood complies, and he and his men disembark at Portland, Ohio, around 6:00 pm and position themselves at the Lower Ford of Buffington Island at 7:00 pm. The Henry Logan continues to Pomeroy, Ohio, with Captain Wilson’s troops. Wilson is tasked with preventing Morgan’s entry into Middleport and Pomeroy, where ferryboats and steamboats could provide Morgan a method to cross the Ohio River.

Colonel August Kautz’s special Buckeye detachment of four hundred cavalrymen (with no artillery or wagons) spends nearly six hours this morning rebuilding the bridge over the Ohio & Erie Canal at Jasper, Ohio. After they finish, Kautz’s men ford the Scioto River and enter Piketon, Ohio, at 9:30 am. At this point, the rest of Union brigadier general Edward Hobson’s Provisional Division trails by a six-hour ride. Hobson’s night ride is the longest of the raid for these Union cavalrymen, measuring just over eighty miles. During the previous night, they pass through Locust Grove, where they stop briefly to feed, and head for Jasper and Piketon. At 2:00 pm, near Jasper, Lieutenant Colonel Noah H. Hixon and 320 mounted militiamen from Hillsborough, Ohio, fall in behind Hobson’s troopers; Hobson officially attaches them to Colonel Wolford’s brigade. The Provisional Division’s progress is slow because of the difficult terrain, few roads and bridges, and lack of serviceable horses among the civilians along the route.

Kautz leaves Piketon at 10:00 am and arrives in Jackson, Ohio, before nightfall to rest his men and wait for Hobson to come up. Hobson reaches Piketon at 3:00 pm and sends Colonel William Sanders’s Michigan Cavalry Brigade ahead with its two artillery pieces to join Kautz in Jackson. Hobson leaves Piketon an hour later with the rest of the division.

Kautz’s Buckeyes receive a hero’s welcome from the hundreds of women in Jackson, who have prepared a large meal for their Union soldiers at the market house. Many of these veterans call Jackson their home, having returned to Ohio for the first time since they had enlisted. Kautz’s brigade dines in fine style tonight. Afterwards, his men throw out into the street the letterpress type, records, and supplies of the Jackson (Iron Valley) Express, a Southern-leaning newspaper, as retribution for Morgan’s men destroying the newspaper equipment at the Republican-biased Jackson Standard. Kautz’s soldiers are equally pleased to see Sanders’s Wolverines when they trot into Jackson during the night, followed a few hours later by General Hobson and the rest of the Provisional Cavalry Division. All sleep deeply tonight.

Sources:

Cahill, Lora Schmidt, and David L. Mowery. Morgan’s Raid Across Ohio: The Civil War Guidebook of the John Hunt Morgan Heritage Trail. Columbus, OH: Ohio Historical Society, 2014, p. 19-315.

Duke, Basil W. A History of Morgan's Cavalry. Cincinnati, OH: Miami Printing and Publishing Co., 1867, pp. 402-465.

Johnson, Adam R. The Partisan Rangers of the Confederate States Army. Louisville, KY: George G. Fetter Co., 1904, pp. 142-150, 438-467.

Mowery, David L. Morgan’s Great Raid: The Remarkable Expedition from Kentucky to Ohio. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2013, pp. 85-165.

U.S. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Ser. 1, Vol. 23, Pt. 1. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901, pp. 11-15, 632-818.