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Morgan's Raid
Recollections of Former Madison Woman Then But A Little Girl

Lakewood, Ohio
July 19, 1937

I personally remember very vividily the panic, agitation, repudiation his crossing the Ohio aroused in Madison people. I was six years old when the war began. Everybody went to work hiding valuables. Some rushed to the country and hilltrops. My father, John G. Sering owned the home now the property of Miss Drusilla Cravens on the hill. Among the relatives who came to our place for refuge was my grandmother who had been a pioneer in the days when Indian raids were frequent. While with us she would not, at night, sleep in a bed but on the floor. She said by placing her head on the floor she would hear better when the rebels came. She had picked out a place in the thick woods on the hill back of Georgetown, as it was called at that time. The trees were covered with wild grape vines and she thought it would make a good hiding place for the family when the raiders came.

She had seen the home guards march valiantly out the Michigan road to protect Madison. My father followed with a spring wagon load of supplies donated by the patriotic women of Fairmount, in fact, their Sunday dinners, solicited by Hattie Sering and Alice Hite, two young ladies of the hill. As she saw him go she threw up her hands and cried, "There goes my last son to the war." I often wondered what the home guard would have done if Morgan had come. Would they have been able to defeat him?

Homer Sering and John Cravens went riding out, as scouts, to find him. They found him at Dupont and were shot at but escaped. But John Morgan took a different route. I think he went from Dupont along Big Creek. I have heard the farmers along Big Creek tell of the hams they found along the road. He had raided the Mayfield pork house in Dupont. They cut out what they wanted from a ham and threw the rest away.

I also heard Mr. Lloyd, farmer on Big Creek, tell of hiding, a very fine young horse in the deep woods and leaving his two old work horses in the barn yard, hoping they would satisfy the rebels. But he said, "That silly colt, when he heard the rebel horses, commenced such a whinnying he could be heard for miles. They found him.

They made a mistake in not returning across the river from the Ind. side. The Ohio people had time to rally strong forces to defeat him and took him prisoner. Those were stirring times. Feelings were bitter in those days.

Two summers ago I spent five months in the south, met the stedaughters of John Morgan. One of them told me she had no hard feelings toward the norh. I did not hear any bitter words of hate from anyone, although I was in the vicinity of many battle grounds. I visited Lookout Mountain, Missionary ridge, Murfreesboror, etc., where there are thousands of graves of veterans.

ELIZA SERING LAWRENCE (A)

Grace Monroe
Dist. 4, Jefferson County
Ref. (A) Madison Courier--July 20, 1937

Text from: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection