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Morgan's Raid
Morgan's Raid Through Ripley County
Morgan and his raiders entered Ripley
from Jennings County on Sunday, July 13, 1863. Their first stop was at
Rexville in Shelby township, where a general store was looted. From
Rexville they marched to Versailles where they were met at the new
courthouse by a hurriedly summoned band of the militia and citizens. The
raiders seized the guns belonging to the militia and broke them against
the corner of the courthouse, which at that time was not completed. The
Deputy County Treasurer, B. F. Spencer had buried the county funds for
safety from the raiders. The treasurer's office was looted and it is
reported that several thousand dollars was taken by the raiders. Private
citizens having funds or valuable jewelry and silverware hid them in a
safe place. Many housewives hung their jewelry in the bean vines and other
secret hiding places. Horses were hidden as well as possible in advance of
the raiders, as they constantly seized fresh horses, leaving worn out
nags, occasionally, in their stead. Housewives were ordered to prepare
meals for the marauding cavalry and feed was appropriated for their
animals, all available supplies were used or carried away. The detachment,
to be known forever in American history as Morgan's Raiders, did not march
in a compact body but followed a general course in scattered units, the
central force of about three thousand men, containing the leaders -- John
Morgan, and his two lieutenants. Many interesting stories have been told
of their behavior while in this county. One of these was that Morgan's
army stopped at a farm house and were sleeping on the porch. The well at
the farm house had been dipped dry for the raiders and their horses. One
of them asked a small boy at the farm to dip him a drink of water for
which he would give the boy some marbles. The Water was given for which he
received a bountiful supply of marbles. Many years later while he was in
Louisville, Ky. on business he met the same donor of the marbles and their
acquaintance was renewed only in a different manner. Morgan and his army
passed through and had burned the bridge over Laughry Creek and Greasy
Run. This art of the Morgan's raid is taken from John Robert's clippings
of the daily newspaper and is as follows: -- "Morgan forced the father of
John Roberts to help roll the cars to the center of the bridges, after
they had taken him prisoner. He said that colonel Basil Duke gave orders
to burn all railroad property and to take what property from the citizens
they needed for the army but not to destroy private property. He said to
Mr. Roberts, 'Old man if you could only see our country, down south, how
we have been driven from our homes and our houses burned you might feel
yourself lucky to have fallen into more generous hands than those of the
Yankees.'
Mr. Roberts replied, that, "I believe you are telling the truth, as I have
two boys in the Union army, and if things are damaged as badly in the
south as they write home it must be terrible.
The Colonel said, 'We have not come
here to destroy private property but to show you boys that you are on the
wrong side. We are here to give you people a chance to help toward a good
cause. We are very much in need of good horses. Our horses were good but
are worn out with rapid marching."
Basil Duke wrote a detailed account of the raid from his personal
experiences and the official records of the expedition, giving facts,
figures, lists of officers and men and a continuous narrative of the route
and incidents of the famous raid. It accomplished nothing of importance
for the South. Morgan had expected the Knights of the Golden Circle in
southern Indiana to join him as Confederates and thus increase his force
to a strength that would aid him in capturing Indianapolis. In this
expectation he was entirely disappointed. Put to the test the "Butternuts"
or the Copperheads" failed to rally to his support. Instead his man were
scattered, captured, and lost by various mishaps every day of the hurried
route of the fleeing raiders through Indiana and Ohio.
From Versailles the raiders moved to Milan and Pierceville. Stragglers
spread throughout the entire county, looking for horses, food and
valuables. One group went to Napoleon via Osgood, from there to New Point
in Decatur County. Then back into Ripley County into Batesville and on to
Sunman where they pitched camp for the night.
Batesville citizens of 1863, still remaining in the community, recall the
five or six dusty and frayed looking Confederate soldiers who rode into
Hunterville on the Newpoint road and ordered dinner at the tavern there.
While waiting for the meal to be prepared they observed another group of
buildings farther east along the C.C.C. & St. L. Railroad and learning
this was a larger town known as Batesville, cancelled their order for
dinner and rode on in hope of getting better fare. Perhaps they were not
disappointed. There were five tall buildings among lower ones in
Batesville at that time. One was the newly built Boehringer Hall, three
stories above a basement floor. Fat blue and white pigeons sat in flocks
on its roof. The hungry men in tattered gray uniforms shot a number of the
birds and feasted a little later at the expense of Mr. Boehringer and Mr.
J. Thomas, whose boarding house stood near the ambitious Boehringer Hall
apartment, office and boarding house combined. General Lew Wallace was
encamped near Sunman, north and west in the locality of Penntown. He had
been ordered to Sunman, just a railroad station and a few houses at that
time, to intercept Morgan's advance toward Indianapolis. He was camped
there for several days, arriving in Ripley County in advance of Morgan's
raiders. There must have been a few Knights of the Golden Circle who kept
their vows of loyality to the southern Confederacy in spite of failure to
enlist in the invading army. Else Gen. Wallace should have been able to
have captured the fleeing Southern leader at his brief night camp three
miles south of Sunman. Five or six miles separated the camps, but Morgan
was away across in Dearborn County by New Alsace and Harrison into Ohio
before the Union leader learned of his proximity.
The pursuing Union troops under Lieut. Edward Hobson rode hard after the
raiders the following day July 13, 1863 but the first Morgan and his
equally dashing lieutenants Basil Duke and Dick Morgan had all ready
reached the Ohio river beyond Cincinnati.
The raiders threw away smoked hams, looted from a meat curing plant at
Dupont, a bird cage or two, belts of cloth carried from the store, a
little country-general store at Rexville; tin ware, coffee-grinders, all
kinds of kitchen untinsels, drygoods and small groceries were strewn along
the route of the raiders as they "galloped and galloped on their way.
Morgan, Morgan, the raider, and Morgan's terrible men" as characterized in
the poem "Kentucky Belle"; The author of this poem overlooked the long
ride through Indiana before the raiders "swept into Ohio's cornfields",
the deep green shoulder-high July cornfields." Yet the longer part of this
famous raid led across Crawford, Clark, Jennings, Jefferson, Ripley and
Dearborn Counties in Indiana.
Pages of incidents of the brief ride of Morgan's men and their brief rest
in Ripley County could be told and written from the stories of
eye-witnesses and participants among Ripley County citizens. A few Ripley
County men were taken along with the raiders as "guides" to the next point
desirable to reach toward Cincinnati, as the dash toward Indianapolis
collapsed into flight. These men were accused by their neighbors of being
members of the "Butternut-Copperhead" organizations, whether justly in any
case was never proven. The routed Homeguards and citizens at Versailles
and in other counties avoided bloodshed by their inability to oppose the
marauders. The leaders of the raid were gallant southern gentlemen at
heart and brothers across the river of the people through whose states
they led their line of march. Southern Indiana was settled by men from
Kentucky and Virginia more largely than from any other source. Back of
Kentucky's settlement they came from Pennsylvania, Maryland and the
Carolinas into the blue-grass country of Daniel Boone. Blood Brothers of
one race and one country, they recognized each other when face to face.
At Versailles Col. Morgan demanded the funds from the safe of the county
treasurer. The treasury was in charge of deputy, B. F. Spencer, who had
safely buried the county funds hours before Morgan arrived. He opened the
safe and gave the rebel leader the cash, $5000. A number of purses also
lay in the safe. "What are those?" inquired the raider.
"They are purses of money placed here by several widowed ladies for
safe-keeping," the gallant Spencer, of Kentucky blood, himself answered
the Confederate leader.
"Keep them safe. I never robbed a widow yet", was Morgan's farewell word
as he ordered his men to remount and to ride, out of Versailles to the
north and east via Pierceville and Old Milan to the halting-place near the
Dearborn-Ripley county lines between Clinton and the railroad beyond which
lay Gen. Wallace's camp of Union soldiers. They fed from beef taken from
Sunman farms and adjoining neighbors. A few hours of galloping, a few
hours of rest and sentries on the alert and Morgan had come and gone
across Ripley County; across southeastern Indiana, into Ohio, into the
past, into history. A day's march only, leaving the years only to piece
together the local accounts of his raid as an addition to lieutenant Basil
Duke's graphic and authentic record from the raider's own viewpoint. Wm.
H. O'Brien has written a pamphlet on Dearborn County's part in this story.
The Historical Society has placed along the route commemorative markers.
At Rexville, Versailles, on the Milan road at the Hassmer home, just north
of Versailles; at Pierceville, Old Milan at Governor Harding Home, and at
St. Paul's Church south of Sunman, the Ripley County markers show that
"Colonel John Morgan passed here on July 12, 1863", Other markers are
needed to tell the story of this incident to the posterity.
Col. John Morgan's famous raid into southern Indiana in July, 1863 was
planned as a parallel to Gen. Robert E. Lee's dash into Pennsylvania at
the same period. One of the dates of world history, as well as civil war
history is the Gettysburg battle date, July 1, 2, and 3, of 1863.
Lincoln's Gettysburg address, given a few months later at the dedication
of the battle field as nation cemetery, has immortalized the major
offensive of the Confederate armies in an effort to move the war by these
invasions, into northern territory. Morgan's raid is more famous in local
historical records than in national ones as it was of little importance
and was considered by many as a more skermish for the glory of its
leaders. The six thousand men of Morgan's Cavalry command crossed the Ohio
River into Indiana near Mauckport and circumscribed a curve across
southeastern Indiana and southwestern Ohio that was more of a route rather
than a raid. Morgan was followed by the Union Lieutenant Colonel Edward
Hobson with a detachment of infantry, About a twenty-four advance was held
by the confederates for most of the route until the main body of the
troops was captured, a remnant only escaping back across the Ohio River.
The raiders carried a few pieces of artillery which was never used. They
robbed farms, stores and dwellings of food supplies for men and horses,
cash and in some cases anything that could by carried away. Bird-cages,
clocks, tin-ware, bolts of cloth and such property, entirely useless to
the raiders was included in their loot and finally thrown away along the
line of march as the raiders were hourly pushed into a hurried disordered
riot of escape from the pursuing Union soldiers. Only a few civilians were
fired upon by the raiders.
Lawerence McHenry
Ripley County
District # 5
Reference---Mrs. Minnie Wycloff, Batesville, Indiana.
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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