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JOHN HUNT MORGAN (1825-1864)

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 834 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOHN HUNT MORGAN (1825-1864)  ,
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American Confederate soldier, was born in
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Huntsville,
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Alabama, on the 1st of
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June 1825, and was brought up on a
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farm near Lexington,
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Kentucky, to which his parents removed in 1830 . In the Mexican War he was a first
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lieutenant of a Kentucky cavalry regiment . On the outbreak of the
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Civil War he was captain of the Lexington Rifles (organized in 1857); in September 1861 he succeeded in getting out of Lexington the
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company's arms after the issue of the order for the disarming of the state guard, and
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late in the same month reached the Confederate camp at Woodsonville on the Green
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river . He proved himself an able scout, and was made captain of a cavalry company and
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commander of a cavalry "
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squadron," including two other companies, which in
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February 1862, with General A . S . Johnston's other forces, withdrew from Kentucky to Corinth,
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Mississippi . He was commissioned a colonel after the
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battle of Shiloh, and in
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July 1862, starting from eastern
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Tennessee, made the first of his famous raids . He routed a Federal force at Lebanon, destroyed much
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rolling stock and other railway
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property, and threatened
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Louisville and
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Cincinnati . In August and September he took
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part in General Braxton Bragg's invasion of Kentucky, and again threatened
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Ohio . In December he defeated the Union garrison at Hartsville, Tennessee, taking prisoners, valuable stores, and many cattle; was commissioned brigadier-general for this success; and soon afterward again raided Kentucky . To cover Bragg's
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movement from Tullahoma to
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Chattanooga Morgan made, in July 1863, his famous
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raid into
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Indiana and Ohio . Bragg had instructed him to confine himself to Kentucky, but Morgan hoped to gain recruits in Indiana, where opposition to the war was strong .

With 2460 men he crossed the Cumber-

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land near Burkesville, Kentucky, on the 2nd of July; on the 5th captured a garrison at Lebanon; and on the 13th entered Ohio near Harrison . The
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regular cavalry, under Generals E . H . Hobson and James M . Shackelford, was now close behind him, and his way was beset by quickly gathering militia . He marched through the suburbs of Cincinnati on the
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night of the 13th and on the 18th got to Portland, near Buffington Island, where he attempted to
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cross on the next day; but gunboats and steamers prevented him . In a sharp battle he lost 600 or more men . As many more surrendered soon afterwards, and about 300 crossed the river . On the 26th he surrendered to General Shackelford at New Lisbon . He was imprisoned with 70 of his men in the penitentiary at Columbus, from which on the night of the 27th of November he and six of his companions escaped by a tunnel they had dug . In the spring of 1864 hewas put in virtual command of the Department of South-western Virginia, which included eastern Tennessee, and late in August he took command at Jonesboro,
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Georgia . On the 4th of September he was shot in a garden in
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Greenville, Tennessee, having been betrayed, it appears, to the Federals .

Morgan had an excellent

eye for topographical details, and by the swiftness of his movements and his sudden blows kept Kentucky in continual alarm . His lieutenant, Basil W . Duke, says that his force at no time reached 4000, but that it `killed and wounded nearly as many of the enemy and captured more than 15,000." See Basil W . Duke,
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History of Morgan's Cavalry (Cincinnati, 1867) .

End of Article: JOHN HUNT MORGAN (1825-1864)
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