Morgan's cavalry

Front matter

FRONTISPIECE

By BASIL W. DUKE

ILLUSTRATED

Contents

I. PERSONALITY OF GENERAL MORGAN AND HlS

Qualities as a Commander — His Rapid Creation of an Efficient Cavalry Command, and Discovery of New Uses for that Arm of the Service, ii

II. Political Sentiment and Conditions in

Chapter I

Personality of General Morgan and His Qualities as a Commander— His Rapid Creation of an Efficient Cavalry Command, and Discovery of new Uses for that Arm of the Service.

In undertaking to write the history of General Morgan's services and of the command which he created, it is but fair that I acknowledge myself influenced, in a great measure, by the feelings of the friend and the follower ; that I desire, if I can do so by relating facts, of most of which I am personally cognizant, to perpetuate his fame, and at the same time establish the true character of a body of men who, recruited and inured to war by him, served bravely and faithfully to the close of the great struggle.

General Morgan's career during the late war was so remarkable that it is not surprising that the public, accustomed to the contradictory newspaper versions of his exploits, should be disposed to receive all accounts of it with some incredulity. It was so rapid, so crowded with exciting incidents, appealed so strongly to the passions and elicited so constantly the comments of both sides, that contemporary accounts of his operations were filled with mistakes and exaggerations, and it is natural that some should be expected in any history of his campaigns, although written after the strife is over.

A narrative of the operations of a command composed, in great part, of Kentuckians, must possess some interest for the people of their own State. So general and intense was the interest which Morgan excited among the young men of the State that he obtained recruits from every county, numbers running every risk to join him when no other leader could enlist a man. The whole State was represented in his command. Many Kentuckians who had enlisted in regiments from other States procured transfers to his command, and it frequently happened that men, the bulk of whose regiments were in prison, or who had become irregularly detached from them by some of the many accidents of which the volunteer, weary of monotony, is prompt to take advantage, would attach themselves to and serve temporarily with it. Probably every native citizen of Kentucky who will read these lines will think of some relative or friend who at some time served with Morgan.

It is a prevalent opinion that his troops were totally undisciplined and unaccustomed to the instruction and restraint which form the soldier. They were, to be sure, far below the standard of regular troops in these respects, and doubtless they were inferior in many particulars of drill and organization to some carefully-trained bodies of cavalry, Confederate and Federal, which were less constantly and actively engaged in service on the front. But these essential requisites to efficiency were by no means neglected or in a great degree lacking. The utmost care was exercised in the organization of every regiment to place the best men in office. No opportunity was neglected to attain proficiency in the tactics which experience had induced us to adopt, and among officers and men there was a perfect appreciation of the necessity of strict subordination, prompt, unquestioning obedience to superiors, and an active, vigilant discharge of all the duties which devolve upon the soldier in the vicinity or presence of the enemy.

I do not hesitate to say that "Morgan's Division," in its best days, would have lost nothing (in points of discipline and instruction) by comparison with any of the fine cavalry commands, which did constant service, of the Confederate army, and the testimony of more than one inspecting officer can be cited to that effect. More credit, too, has been given General Morgan for qualities and ability which constitute a successful partisan to lead a handful of men than for the very decided military talents which he possessed.

An even cursory study of Morgan's record will convince the military reader that the character he bore with those who served with him was deserved. That, while circumspect and neglectful of no precaution to insure success or avert disaster, he was extremely bold in thought and action ; that using every means to obtain extensive and accurate information (attempting no enterprise of importance without it), and careful in the consideration of every contingency, he was yet marvelously quick to combine and to revolve, and so rapid and sudden in execution as frequently to confound both friends and enemies. And above all, once convinced, he never hesitated to act ; he would back his judgment against every hazard and with every resource at his command.

Whatever merit be allowed or denied General Morgan, he is beyond all question entitled to the credit of having discovered uses for cavalry, or rather mounted infantry, to which that arm was never applied before. While other cavalry officers were adhering to the traditions of former wars and the systems of the schools, however inapplicable to the demands of their day and the nature of the struggle, he originated and perfected, not only a system of tactics, a method of fighting and handling men in the presence of the enemy, but also a strategy as effective as it was novel. Totally ignorant of the art of war as learned from the books and in the academies; an imitator in nothing; self taught in all that he knew and did, his success was not more marked than his genius. The creator and organizer of his own little army — with a force which at no time reached four thousand — he killed and wounded nearly as many of the enemy and captured more than fifteen thousand. The author of the farreaching "raid," so different from the mere cavalry dash, he accomplished with his handful of men results which would otherwise have required armies and the costly preparations of regular and extensive campaigns.

I shall endeavor to show the intimate connection between his operations and those of the main army in each department where he served, and the strategic importance of even his apparently rashest and most purposeless raids, when considered with reference to their bearing upon the grand campaigns of the West. When the means at his disposal, the difficulties with which he had to contend, and the results he effected, are well understood, it will be conceded that his reputation with the Southern soldiery was not undeserved, and that to rank with the best of the many active and excellent cavalry officers of the West, to have had, confessedly, no equal among them except in Forrest, argues him to have possessed no common ability.

For the spirit in which it is written, I have only to say that I have striven to be candid and accurate; to that sort of impartiality which is acquired at the expense of a total divestiture of natural feeling I can lay no claim.

A Southern man, once a Confederate soldier — always thoroughly Southern in sentiments and feeling — I can, of course, write only a Southern account of what I saw in the late war, and as such what is herein written must be received.

John Hunt Morgan was born at Huntsville, Ala., on the ist day of June, 1825. His father, Calvin C. Morgan, was a native of Virginia. In early manhood Mr. Morgan followed the tide of emigration flowing from Virginia to the West and began life in Alabama. In 1823 he married the daughter of John W Hunt, of Lexington, Ky., one of the wealthiest and most successful men of the State, and one whose influence and efforts did much to develop the prosperity of that part of it in which he resided. Mr. Morgan is described by all who knew him as a gentleman whom it was impossible to know and not to respect and esteem. His character was at once firm and attractive, but he possessed neither the robust constitution nor the adventurous and impetuous spirit which characterized other members of his family. He was quiet and studious in his habits, and although fond of the society of his friends, shunned every kind of excitement. When failing health forced him to leave Alabama, he removed with his family to Kentucky and resided in Lexington for the remainder of his life. John H. Morgan's maternal grandfather, Mr Hunt, came to Kentucky from New Jersey. His family which was of old and excellent English stock, settled originally at Newton, Long Island, of which place his ancestor, Ralph Hunt,

John H. Morgan

Lieutenant in the Mexican Wa was one of the founders. The General's mother, Mrs. Henrietta Hunt Morgan, was universally beloved. Exceptionally amiable and unselfish in disposition, she yet possessed very determined traits of character and positive convictions. Her son inherited from her those qualities which commanded the perfect devotion of his followers.

John H. Morgan was reared in Kentucky. When nineteen years of age he enlisted for the Mexican War and was elected first lieutenant of Captain Perry Beard's company of Colonel Humphrey Marshall's regiment of Kentucky cavalry. His brother Calvin and his uncle Alexander G. Morgan were members of the same company. His uncle was killed at Buena Vista, in which battle Colonel Marshall's regiment was hotly engaged. Soon after his return home he married Miss Bruce, of Lexington, a sweet and lovely lady, who, almost from the day of her wedding, was a confirmed and patient invalid and sufferer. Immediately after his marriage, he entered energetically into business; was industrious, enterprising and prosperous, and at the breaking out of the war, in 1861, he was conducting in Lexington two successful manufactories. Every speculation and business enterprise in which he engaged succeeded, and he had acquired a very handsome property. This he left, when he went South, to the mercy of his enemies, making no provision whatever for its protection, and apparently caring not at all what became of it.

The qualities in General Morgan which would have attracted most attention in private life were an exceeding gentleness of disposition and unbounded generosity. His kindness and goodness of heart were proverbial. His manner, even after he had become accustomed to command, was gentle and kind, and no doubt greatly contributed to acquire him the singular popularity which he enjoyed long before he had made his military reputation. The strong will and energy which he always displayed might not have elicited much notice had not the circumstances in which the war placed him developed and given them scope for exercise. But his affection for the members of his family and his friends, the generosity which prompted him to consult their wishes at the expense of any sacrifice of his own, his sensitive regard for the feelings of others, even of those in whom he felt least interest, and his rare charity for the failings of the weak, made up a character which, even without an uncommon destiny, would have been illustrious.

His benevolence was so well known in Lexington that to "go to Captain Morgan" was the first thought of every one who wished to inaugurate a charitable enterprise, and his business house was a rendezvous for all the distressed and a sort of "intelligence office" for the poor seeking employment. His temper was cheerful and frequently gay; no man more relished pleasantry and mirth in the society of his friends, with whom his manner was free and even at times jovial. There was never a more sanguine man; with him to live was to hope and to dare. Yet while rarely feeling despondency and never despair, he did not deceive himself with false or impossible expectations. He was quick to perceive the real and the practical, and while enterprising in the extreme he was not in the least visionary. His nerve, his powers of discrimination, the readiness with which he could surrender schemes found to be impracticable, if by chance he became involved in them, and his energy and close attention to his affairs, made him very successful in business, and undoubtedly the same qualities, intensified by the demand that war made upon them, contributed greatly to his military success.

He could, with more accuracy than any one, divine the plans and wishes of an enemy. This was universally remarked, and he exhibited it, not only in correctly surmising the intentions of his own immediate opponents, but also in the opinions which he gave regarding the movements of the grand armies. He sought all the information which could, however remotely, affect his interests and designs with untiring avidity, and the novel and ingenious expedients he sometimes resorted to in order to obtain it would perhaps furnish materials for the most interesting chapter of his history.

He had another faculty which is very essential to military success ; indispensably necessary, at any rate, to a cavalry commander who acts independently and at such distances from any base or support as he almost constantly did. I believe the English term it having "a good eye for a country." It is the faculty of rapidly acquiring a correct idea of the nature and peculiar features of any country in which military operations are to be conducted. He neglected nothing that a close study of maps and careful inquiry could furnish of this sort of knowledge, but after a brief investigation or experience, he generally had a better understanding of the subject than either map-makers or natives could give him.

However imperfect might be .his acquaintance with a country, it was nearly impossible for a guide to deceive him. What he had once learned in this respect he never forgot. A road once traveled was always afterward familiar to him, with distances, localities and the adjacent country. Thus, always having in his mind a perfect idea of the region where he principally operated, he could move with as much facility and confidence (when there) without maps and guides as with them.

His favorite strategy on his important expeditions or "raids" was to place himself by long and swift marches — moving sometimes for days and nights without a halt except to feed the horses — in the very heart of the territory where were the objects of his enterprise. He relied upon this method to confuse if not to surprise his enemy, and prevent a concentration of his forces. He would then strike right and left. He rarely declined upon such expeditions to fight when advancing, for it was his theory that then a concentration of superior forces against him was more difficult, and that the vigor of his enemy was to a certain extent paralyzed by the celerity of his own movements and the mystery which involved them. But after commencing his retreat, he would use every effort and strategem to avoid battle, fearing that while fighting one enemy others might overtake him, and believing that at such times the morale of his own troops was somewhat impaired. No leader could make more skillful use of detachments. He would throw them out to great distances, even when surrounded by superior and active forces, and yet rarely was one of them (commanded by a competent officer who obeyed instructions) overwhelmed or cut off. It very seldom happened that they failed to accomplish the purposes for which they were dispatched, or to rejoin the main body in time to assist in decisive action. He could widely separate and apparently scatter his forces and yet maintain such a disposition of them as to have all well in hand. When pushing into the enemy's lines he would send these detachments in every direction, until it was impossible to conjecture his real intentions — causing, generally, the shifting of troops from point to point as each was threatened, until the one he wished to attack was weakened, when he would strike at it like lightning.

He knew how to thoroughly confuse and deceive an enemy, and induce in him (as he desired) false confidence or undue caution , how to isolate and persuade or compel him to surrender without giving battle; and he could usually manage, although inferior to the aggregate of the hostile forces around him, to be stronger or as strong at the point and moment of encounter.

He seldom failed to discern and to take advantage of the ruling characteristics of those who approached him, and he could subsidize the knowledge and talents of other men with rare skill. He especially excelled in judging men collectively. He knew exactly how to appeal to the feelings of his men, to excite their enthusiasm, and stimulate them to dare any danger and endure any fatigue and hardship. But he sometimes committed the gravest errors in his estimation of individual character.

General Morgan had more of those personal qualities which make a man's friends devoted to him than any one I have ever known. He was himself very warm and constant in the friendships which he formed. It seemed impossible for him to do enough for those to whom he was attached, or to ever give them up. His manner, when he wished, prepossessed every one in his favor. He was generally more courteous and attentive to his inferiors than to his equals and superiors. This may have proceeded in a great measure from his jealousy of dictation and impatience of restraint, but was the result also of warm and generous feeling. His greatest faults arose out of his kindness and easiness of disposition, which rendered it impossible for him to say or do unpleasant things, unless when under the influence of strong prejudice or resentment. This temperament made him a too lax disciplinarian, and caused him to be frequently imposed upon. He was exceedingly and unfeignedly modest. For a long time he sought, in every way, to avoid the applause and ovations which met him everywhere in the South, and he never learned to keep a bold countenance when receiving them.

His personal appearance and carriage were striking and graceful. His features were eminently handsome and adapted to the most pleasing expressions. His eyes were small, of a grayish blue color, and their glances keen and thoughtful. His figure on foot or on horseback was superb. He was exactly six feet in height, and although not at all corpulent, weighed one hundred and eighty-five pounds. His form was perfect and the rarest combination of strength, activity, and grace. His constitution seemed impervious to the effects of privation and exposure, and it was scarcely possible to perceive that he suffered from fatigue or lack of sleep.

Men are not often born who can wield such an influence as he exerted, apparently without an effort ; who can so win men's hearts and stir their blood. He will, at least, be remembered until the Western cavalrymen and their children have all died. The bold riders who live in the border-land, whose every acre he made historic, will leave many a story of his audacity and wily skill.

Chapter II

Political Sentiment and Conditions in Kentucky in 1861— Why She Failed to Secede — Military Situation in the West — Confederate Occupation of Bowling Green — Organization and Equipment of Confederate Troops at that Date— Their Military Characteristics.

The position assumed by Kentucky at the inception of the great struggle, and her conduct throughout it, excited the surprise and, in no small degree, incurred the ill-will of both the contending parties. But while both North and South, at some time, doubted her good faith and complained of her action, such sentiment has been forgotten by the latter ami became intensified into undisguised animosity upon the part of a large share of the population of the former section.

The reason is patent. It is the same which induced the Confederates to hope confidently for substantial assistance from Kentucky, if once enabled to obtain foothold upon her territory ; and caused the Federals, on the other hand, to regard even the loudest and most zealous professors of loyalty as Secessionists in disguise, or at best Unionists only to save their property It is the instinctive feeling that the people of Kentucky, on account of kindred blood, common interests and identity of ideas in all that relates to political rights and objects of political institutions, might be supposed likely to sympathize and act with the people of the South.

A number of causes and influences combined to prevent Kentucky from taking a decided and consistent stand with either of the combatants, and produced the vacillation which so notably characterized her councils and paralyzed her efforts in either direction. Her geographical situation, presenting a frontier of several hundreds of miles to an assailant coming from either the North or South, caused her people grave apprehension, especially as it was accounted an absolute certainty that her territory, if she sided with the

South, would be made the battleground and subjected to all the horrors and desolations of war. This feeling became stronger and more controlling because of the apparent incertitude of some of the Southern States, and their delay and seeming hesitation to enter the Confederacy. The political education of the Kentuckians, also, disposed them to enter upon such a contest with extreme reluctance. Originally a part of Virginia and chiefly settled by immigration from that State, her earlier population partook of the characteristics and were imbued with the sentiments which so strongly prevailed in the mother Commonwealth.

From Virginia the first generation of Kentucky statesmen derived the opinions which became the political creed of the people of the South, and were formulated in the famous resolutions of '98, giving shape and consistency to the doctrine of States' rights and popular expression to that construction of the relation of the several States to the General Government, under the Federal Constitution, so earnestly insisted on by the master minds of Virginia. The earlier population of Kentucky was peculiarly inclined to adopt and cherish such opinions by the promptings of that nature which seems common to all men descended from the stock of the "Old Dominion;" that craving for the largest individual independence, and disposition to assert and maintain in full measure every personal right, which has always made the Southern and Western States so jealous of alien interference with their local affairs. It was natural that a people animated by such a spirit should push their preference for self-government even to extremes ; that they should esteem their most valued franchises safe only when entirely under their own custody and control; that they should insist that their peculiar institutions should be submitted only to domestic regulation, and that the personal liberty, valued above all other possessions, should be restrained only by laws enacted by legislators and executed by magistrates chosen among themselves, and identified with and appreciative of their interests. In short, they were strongly attached to their State government, and were not inclined to regard as beneficent or even legitimate any interference with it upon the part of the General Government, whose power and influence they wished restricted to matters pertaining only to the "common defence and general welfare."

This decided and almost universal sentiment was first shaken and the opinions of the Kentuckians in this regard underwent a certain change about the time of and doubtless as a consequence of the Burr conspiracy; but the serious change in such political faith was wrought by Henry Clay He taught his generation to love the "Union" not as an "agency" by means of which certain benefits were to be derived, but as an "end" to be adhered to no matter what results might follow. Mr. Clay sincerely believed that in the union of the States was to be found the surest guarantee of the safety, honor, and prosperity of them all, and he contemplated with horror any thought of its dissolution.

But notwithstanding this divergence of opinion between the people of Kentucky and their brethren in Virginia and the Southern States, the ties of blood and interest grew stronger : and, in the stormy period just antedating the Civil War a very general and positive sympathy with the Southern view of the questions in controversy was manifested. The troubles in Kansas and the agitation in Congress made the Democratic party in the State more determined and aggressive in this respect, and the John Brown affair exasperated her people, in common with those of every slave-holding community, and induced the organization of the State Guard. Created because of the belief that similar attempts would be repeated, and quite probably Kentucky would be a field of future operation, it is not to be wondered at that the State Guard should have expected an enemy only from the North, whence, alone, could come such aggressions, and that it should have conceived an antagonism to the Northern and a sympathy for the Southern cause. These sentiments were intensified by the tone of the Northern press and pulpit, and the commendation of such enterprises as the Harper's Ferry raid which were heard throughout the North.

The difficulty which was felt to be insuperable by all who advocated the secession of Kentucky was her isolated position. Not only, as has been already suggested, did the long hesitation of Virginia and Tennessee effectually abate the ardor and resolution of the Kentuckians who desired to see their State united with the Southern Confederacy, but, while it lasted, it was an insurmountable physical barrier in the way of such an undertaking. With these States antagonistic to the Southern movement, it would have been madness in Kentucky to have attempted to join it. When at length Virginia and Tennessee passed ordinances of secession, Kentucky had become infatuated with the idea of "neutrality." With the leaders of the Union party, this policy had already been determined upon as part of their system for the education of the people to loyalty. The Southern element, which was without organization or recognized leaders, regarded it as something much better than unconditional obedience to the orders and coercive policy of the Federal Government; and the large class of the timid and irresolute, the men who are by nature neutral in times of trouble and danger, accepted it joyfully, as such men always accept a compromise which promises to relieve them of immediate responsibility and the necessity of hazardous decision.

Disconnected from the views and purposes of those who consented to it, this "neutrality" will scarcely admit of serious discussion. Such a position is certainly little else than rebellion, and the principle or conditions which justified it will also justify secession. If a State has the legal or constitutional right to refuse compliance with the requisitions of the General Government, to disobey the laws enacted by Congress and set at defiance the proclamations of the National Executive, to decide for herself her proper policy in periods of war and insurrection and levy armed forces to prevent the occupation of her territory by the troops of the United States, then she has the right to withdraw from the Union when she chooses to do so and contract any alliance in accordance with her wishes. If it be a revolutionary right, which she may justly exercise under certain conditions, the same conditions will justify any other phase or manner of revolution.

The practical result of such a position, had it been stubbornly maintained, would have been to involve Kentucky in more danger than she would have incurred by secession and admission into the Confederacy. A declaration of neutrality in such a contest was virtually equivalent to a declaration of war against both sides ; at any rate it was a proclamation of opposition to the Federal Government, while discarding the friendship of the South, and seemed to at once invite assault from both. The Government of the United States, which was arming to coerce the States which had seceded, would certainly not permit its purpose to be frustrated by any such attitude on the part of Kentucky, and it was not at all likely that the States about to be attacked would respect a neutrality which they knew would prove no hindrance to their adversary. But few men reason clearly in periods of great excitement, or in situations of peril look steadfastly and intelligently at the dangers which surround them.

As has been said, a large class eagerly welcomed the idea that Kentucky should take no part in the great struggle impending, as a relief, however temporary, from a hazard which appalled them. Nine men out of ten will shrink from making up their minds upon a difficult and dangerous issue, and will yet accept gladly, from any one who has the nerve to urge it, a determination however paltry and inconclusive. A great many Union men, who would have earnestly opposed Kentucky's concurrence in the action of the seceding States, and yet as obstinately opposed the policy of coercion by the Government, thought that they saw in "neutrality" a solution of all the difficulties which embarrassed them. A few of the more sagacious and resolute of the Union leaders, who were not, perhaps, incommoded by a devotion to their State or "flag," but who realized that they could get into power only by crushing the Democratic party, and knew that if Kentucky sided with the South, the Democratic element in the State would inevitably dominate, perceived in this policy of neutrality a means of holding Kentucky inactive until the Federal Government could prepare and pour into her territory an overwhelming force. They trusted, and as the sequel showed, with reason, that they could demoralize their opponents, having once reduced them to inaction.

On the other hand, the Kentuckians, who hoped that their State would become part of the Confederacy, but saw no immediate prospect of it, accepted neutrality as the best that could be done under the circumstances. They knew that if this neutrality should be respected, a vital portion of the Confederacy — a border of five hundred miles — would be protected from attack and invasion , that the forces of the Confederacy could be the more readily concentrated for the defense of the other and threatened lines, and that individual Kentuckians could flock to the Southern armies. They believed that, in such a contingency, Kentucky would furnish more men to the Confederacy than would enlist in the Federal service.