The Twenty-Five Days of Morgan - July 7, 1863

General Morgan’s division plods westward throughout the previous night and this morning with the intention of reaching the Ohio River town of Brandenburg, Kentucky, within the next twenty-four hours. Brandenburg is approximately forty miles downstream from the large Union stronghold at Louisville, Kentucky. The citizens and soldiers at Louisville are bracing themselves for an attack from Morgan. Among them is Brigadier General Jeremiah Boyle, who vociferously requests more reinforcements from Burnside to protect Louisville and its sister cities across the river – Jeffersonville and New Albany, Indiana. The US Navy reacts by placing several of its shallow-draft “tinclad” gunboats upstream of the Falls of the Ohio at Portland, Kentucky. Lieutenant Commander Leroy Fitch, who leads the 6th Division of the Mississippi Squadron, is convinced that Morgan will either attack Louisville or attempt to cross the Ohio River northeast of the city. Boyle and Burnside agree. However, Morgan plans to do the opposite.

This afternoon, Morgan allows his exhausted men to camp for the rest of the day at Garnettsville while he sends out an advanced scouting party to perform a special mission. Captain Clay Meriwether and Captain Sam Taylor of the 10th Kentucky Cavalry lead this scouting detachment. Sam is the grandson of deceased US president Zachary Taylor. Meriwether and Taylor are familiar with the territory and the environs of Brandenburg. Morgan instructs them to scout Brandenburg for the enemy, look for US navy gunboats on the river, and if all’s clear, then capture civilian steamboats to ferry Morgan’s Division across the river into Indiana. These Confederates are dressed in civilian clothes, typical of the dress throughout Morgan’s Division, to disguise their identities from potential enemy soldiers or Unionist civilians they might encounter along the way.

The Rebel scouting party enters Brandenburg late this afternoon and discovers that the town is free of enemy soldiers and the river is devoid of enemy gunboats. The raiders hide behind bushes and boxes lining the Brandenburg wharf while a Confederate sympathizer waves down a civilian steamboat named the John T. McCombs, which is puffing steadily upstream toward its final destination at Louisville. During that era, anyone could flag down a steamboat to have it stop for boarding, just like a person hails a taxi. The John T. McCombs responds accordingly, having heard nothing of Morgan’s potential danger to riverboats. Just as the packet tied up at Brandenburg’s wharf, Meriwether and Taylor’s troopers rush from their hiding places, board the boat, and force the captain at gunpoint to surrender his vessel, just like the pirates of old would have done. The captain acquiesces, and the John T. McCombs becomes the property of the Confederate States of America without a shot being fired. The troopers take what they want from the civilian passengers and instruct them to evacuate the boat. Meriwether sends a dispatch to General Morgan to alert him that a steamboat is ready to begin the ferrying procedures for his cavalry division.

Morgan is elated, but he waits until midnight to put his division on the march toward Brandenburg. Meanwhile, Meriwether and Taylor order the captain of the John T. McCombs to steer the boat into the middle of the river opposite Brandenburg and anchor it there. They tell the captain to create a fake distress signal to request any passing steamboats to come to its aid. Soon, another civilian steamboat heading toward Louisville, the large and fairly new Alice Dean, approaches Brandenburg. The Alice Dean’s captain, James H. Pepper, ignorant of the danger ahead, sees the McCombs’s distress signal and calmly pulls up alongside the packet boat. The raiders on board the McCombs leap onto the Alice Dean, and with their pistols in hand, force the captain of the Alice Dean to surrender his boat to the Confederate cause. Captain Pepper begrudgingly does so, and now Morgan will have two steamboats to help him move troops, horses, wagons, and equipment to the north side of the Ohio River.

Union sympathizers in Brandenburg observe what the Confederates have done, and they slip out of town to alert Union authorities in Mauckport, Indiana. Leaders there send desperate messages to nearby towns, to Union headquarters in Louisville, and to the nearest Indiana Legion troops, the title given to the Union militia of Indiana. The Legionnaires are ordered to converge on Morvin’s Landing, a ghost town located along the north bank of the Ohio River directly opposite Brandenburg. A hodgepodge collection of 130 Indiana Legionnaires, with one three-inch rifled cannon, would reach Mauckport by midnight.

Hobson’s Provisional Division follows in the wake of Morgan’s Division. Their night ride places them within a day’s ride of Morgan’s rear guard. If Hobson could catch up to Morgan while his division lingers at Brandenburg, there is a good chance Hobson’s Union veterans could pin the raiders against the Ohio River and compel Morgan to surrender. This thrilling thought pushes the exhausted Union troopers onward while they ride into the night. Nevertheless, Hobson believes his men are ill-prepared for the type of riding and fighting they will need to do to stop Morgan. He decides to encamp his troops for several hours at Bardstown Junction to wait for supplies arriving by train from Louisville.

Sources:

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.

Gorin, Betty J. “Morgan Is Coming!” Confederate Raiders in the Heartland of Kentucky. Louisville, KY: Harmony House Publishers, 2006, pp. 99-260.

Mowery, David L. Morgan’s Great Raid: The Remarkable Expedition from Kentucky to Ohio. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2013, pp. 15-72.

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.

“The Great Raid, Summer 1863.” Trails-R-Us (Kentucky)—John Hunt Morgan Home Page, http://www.trailsrus.com/morgan/map.html.