The Twenty-Five Days of Morgan - July 8, 1863

At 7:00am this foggy morning, Colonel John Timberlake arrives at Morvin’s Landing, Indiana, with 130 men of the Indian Legion and one three-inch rifled cannon hauled by wagon from Leavenworth, Indiana, by Captain George W. Lyon. They quietly form their line along the riverbank opposite Brandenburg without alerting the Confederates stirring at the wharf.

Two hours later, General Morgan trots into the streets of Brandenburg at the head of his division. Waiting at the wharf is a man whom Morgan has been wanting to talk to for quite some time. He is Captain Thomas H. Hines, the chief of Morgan’s spies. Tom has just escaped from a disastrous raid that he had led in mid-June into southern Indiana (known as Hines’s Raid). Only two of the sixty-two cavalrymen Hines had taken on the raid had escaped death or capture in the Hoosier State. It’s one of the worst casualty rates (96%) of any raid conducted during the Civil War. Hines informs Morgan that the Indiana Legion troops are scattered and untrained, but they are ready to move at a moment’s notice. Hines also presents to Morgan the bad news that the Indiana Copperheads (Southern sympathizers who support the Peace Democrat political platform) would not come to his aid with men, armaments, or supplies. Morgan is terribly upset. He would enter a Northern state without any help from these supposed “Confederate backers.” Because of this unfortunate betrayal, Morgan and his troopers would treat Copperheads with more disdain than Union citizens.

Morgan immediately sets the ferrying procedures into motion. He places the men of the 9th Tennessee Cavalry and the 2nd Kentucky Cavalry on board the captured Alice Dean and the John T. McCombs steamboats and prepares to send them across the river to Indiana without their horses (the horses would be shipped across later). Before they could disembark, Lyon’s cannon fires a shot toward the Brandenburg wharf, passing through the rigging of the John T. McCombs before bursting among men of the 14th Kentucky Cavalry, killing three of them and wounding several others. The Rebels are caught off guard by this sudden appearance of the enemy, whom they had not seen until then. Colonel Timberlake yells across the fog-shrouded waters, “I demand you to surrender and bring those boats over here in the name of the United States and the State of Indiana!” One of the Rebels on the wharf replies, “Oh hell, old man, come over and take a drink.” The battle begins in earnest. Timberlake’s artillery piece continues to bombard the wharf while his militiamen fire their rifles at the captured steamboats and the Confederates in Brandenburg.

Captain Edward Byrne arranges his four artillery pieces on the river hill where the Brandenburg courthouse stands during that era. They open counterbattery fire on the lone Union cannon, and the Confederate guns are much more accurate. They immediately disable the Union cannon, kill some of the Legionnaires, and prompt the greenhorn militiamen to scurry for cover several hundred yards to the rear. Timberlake attempts later to send a squad of soldiers to rescue the abandoned cannon by wheeling it to the rear by hand, but the action fails. This cannon would fall into Morgan’s hands and would follow his division for the next eleven days.

US Navy lieutenant commander Leroy Fitch receives the distressing report from Mauckport, Indiana, that Morgan’s men are at Brandenburg. Caught by complete surprise, Fitch has only one gunboat within range below the Falls of the Ohio near Louisville – the tinclad USS Springfield commanded by Acting Ensign Joseph Watson. He orders Watson with his gunboat to Brandenburg to stop Morgan from crossing the Ohio River. The Springfield steams down the river and reaches a point about a mile upstream of Brandenburg just after the 9th Tennessee and 2nd Kentucky cavalrymen have stepped onto Hoosier soil and have easily driven Timberlake’s men onto the ridge overlooking the bottomland. The raiders are without their horses, which will be ferried over on the next trip.

The Springfield’s 24-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzers open on Morgan’s troopers on both banks of the river. General Morgan is visibly disturbed by the sudden appearance of this naval nightmare. Duke indicates that he rarely ever saw Morgan rattled like this. The general is worried that the gunboat will delay the ferrying procedures long enough for Hobson’s Union troopers to catch up.

Unbeknownst to Morgan, Brigadier General Edward Hobson orders several long stops for his Provisional Division – perhaps too long. He had held his troops for several hours the previous night at Bardstown Junction to wait for supplies to be shipped by train from Louisville. Tonight, after a short ride this day in hilly country, Hobson encamps at Garnettsville, Kentucky, to rest his men. He will not get his cavalry and artillery on the move again toward Brandenburg until shortly before dawn tomorrow. Colonel August Kautz, one of Hobson’s brigade commanders, believes this is Hobson’s greatest mistake of the raid. “The pursuit, I am loft to say, was badly conducted by us,” Kautz admits later. “The most serious error committed was that we did not make a night attack on Brandenburg, where he [Morgan] crossed the Ohio. We reached Garnettsville before dark and halted, for some reason that has never been explained, although it was generally understood that Morgan was crossing the Ohio River at Brandenburg, not more than ten miles distant.”

Morgan orders Byrne to return fire on the gunboat with his four artillery pieces. Byrne moves his two ten-pounder Parrott rifles to a higher hill adjacent and to the east of the Brandenburg courthouse, and together with the two twelve-pounder field howitzers in or below town, they lay down a deadly accurate counterbattery fire. The Springfield’s artillery shells crash into buildings on Main Street or fall harmlessly into the river, while Byrne’s shells hit the gunboat’s pilot house or land dangerously close to its hull. After an hour and a half exchange of artillery shelling, the USS Springfield withdraws upriver out of range of Bryne’s battery.

Morgan immediately resumes the ferrying of horses, troops, and wagons. Timberlake’s Indiana Legionnaires scatter as they witness the numbers of Morgan’s troopers growing in large quantities with each steamboat trip. Most of the raiders are now mounted, too. Yet, the US Navy is not finished with Morgan. About 5:00pm, the USS Springfield returns, this time accompanied by two transport steamboats carrying five hundred Union infantrymen. Once again, the Springfield unleashes a barrage on Bryne’s artillery to provide cover for the infantry transports, who were given the mission of landing soldiers on the Indiana shore to engage Morgan’s troopers. However, the accurate replies from Byrne’s battery and the lack of a suitable docking place for the transports foil the Union attempt to land troops. Ensign Watson orders the three steamers to retreat upstream. He was not about to risk his gunboat or the transports to sinking or capture.

Byrne and his infantry-supporting artillery have won the day for Morgan! Unlike most cavalry units of the times, who carried the lighter, more mobile cavalry-supporting artillery, such as the twelve-pounder Mountain Howitzer or the six-pounder smoothbore, Morgan’s mounted infantry tactics for his division included the use of heavier, clumsier infantry-supporting artillery. The latter provided greater range and heavier shells. This choice proved to be to Morgan’s benefit when it came to combating enemy infantry or navy boats, like in the case of Brandenburg.

Duke’s brigade finishes crossing the river by nightfall, and Johnson’s brigade completes their ferrying by midnight. They set nearby natural gas wells on fire to function as giant candles to light the area of operations. Byrne’s battery and the 11th Kentucky Cavalry are the last to leave Kentucky. General Morgan is pleased and relieved by this removal of the second of four barriers for his raid to be successful. He orders Duke to set fire to the two captured steamboats to prevent them from falling into Union hands. Duke has Johnson’s Kentuckians burn the Alice Dean down to the waterline, but he spares the John T. McCombs because its captain is a personal acquaintance of Duke. He instructs the captain to steam ahead to Louisville to keep his boat from being confiscated by Hobson’s force. Nevertheless, Hobson will later commandeer the McCombs to alert Louisville to send down more transports to ferry his blue-clad troopers.

Colonel Adam Johnson admits afterwards, “If there had been any consuming desire on the part of the Federals to capture us, no better opportunity ever presented itself than occurred during the crossing at Brandenburg… Had they closely followed us and attacked vigorously our divided force while crossing, it must have proven disastrous to us.”

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.