1863.1 CAVALRY RAIDS. 373 with thirteen hundred of his men. Soon afterward Colonel Hall with about fourteen hundred Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois troops had a fight with John Morgan. After a struggle of three hours the latter was defeated with a loss of three or four hundred killed and wounded. In April, Van Dorn again attacked Franklin, where General Gordon Granger was in command of about five thousand troops. Van Dorn, with a force nearly twice as large, assaulted a fort which the Union troops were building, but the few guns which had been mounted opened a destructive fire upon him in front, while the Union cavalry attacked his rear. He was obliged to fall back with a loss of five hundred prisoners and many killed and wounded; but he recovered most of ais prisoners, and retired safely to Spring Hill. Van Dorn was soon after shot in his tent by a Southern gentleman whose wife he had insulted. Though Van Dorn was surrounded by his staff officers, the gentleman succeeded in mounting a horse and escaping in safety to Nashville. In the latter part of April, Colonel A. D. Streight was sent with a force of about eighteen hundred men around Bragg's army, with orders to cut railroads and destroy bridges, depots of supplies, factories, and do everything that would tend to injure the Confederate cause. After doing a great deal of damage, Streight was overtaken near Rome, Georgia, by Forrest, with about four thousand cavalry, and obliged to surrender. They were all sent to Richmond, and shut up in Libby Prison, in which so many Union men were confined during the war. In the following February, Streight and about one hundred of his officers escaped by making a tunnel under the walls of their prison. But the most famous raid of this time was that made in July by John Morgan across the Ohio River. General Buckner was then in East Tennessee, near the borders of Kentucky, getting ready to make another dash toward Louisville, and Morgan went ahead to prepare the way. He crossed the Cumberland River into Kentucky with about three thousand mounted men, sacked Columbia, captured Lebanon with four hundred prisoners, and rode on through Bardstown to Brandenburg on the Ohio River, plundering and destroying as he went. Many Kentuckians had joined him on the way, and he then had four thousand men and ten pieces of artillery. The advance of Rosecrans's army just at that time prevented Buckner from joining him, and Morgan determined to cross into Indiana. There were two gunboats in the river, but he kept them off with his artillery while his men crossed on two captured steamboats. Morgan then rode through Indiana toward Cincinnati, fighting home guards, tearing up railroads, burning bridges and mills, and capturing much property. The whole State was aroused by the danger, and thousands of armed men started after the bold riders. Morgan became alarmed, and after passing around Cincinnati, almost within sight of its steeples, turned toward the Ohio to cross again into Kentucky. A large Union force was following, others were advancing on his flanks, and gunboats and steamboats filled with armed men were moving up the river to cut him off. The people aided the pursuers all they could by cutting down trees and barricading the roads to stop Morgan's march. He was so delayed by these and other things that he did not reach the Ohio until July 19th. He hoped to cross at a place called Buffington Ford, but the Union men were upon him, and he had to turn and fight. After a severe battle, in which the Union troops were helped by gunboats which cut off the raiders from crossing the ford, about eight hundred of Morgan's men surrendered, and the rest, with Morgan himself, fled up the river fourteen miles to Bellville, where they tried to cross by swimming their horses. About three hundred men had succeeded in getting over when the gunboats came up and opened fire on them. A fearful scene ensued, for it was a struggle of life and death. Amid shots from the boats, the riders urged on their snorting horses. Some got across, some were shot, and some drowned. Morgan was not among the fortunate ones who escaped. With about two hundred men he fled further up the river to New Lisbon, where he was surrounded and forced to surrender. This was a wonderful raid, but it did not do the Confederate cause any good. A large part of the property destroyed was private property, and this roused the anger of all the people of the Border States, a large part of whom had before taken little interest in carrying on the war. The battle-field and the roads leading from it were strewn with articles never seen in such places before. Mingled with broken arms, haversacks, and 1863.] AN OLD HERO. 375 cartridge-boxes, one could pick up almost any article of household use or personal wear-crockery and tinware, cutlery, spoons, boots and shoes, hats, caps, and bonnets, pieces of calico and silk, ribbons, women's, men's, and children's clothing, and all kinds of useful things. On the persons of the captured were found many watches and much jewelry, and a good deal of money, both "greenbacks" and Confederate notes. Morgan and some of his officers were sent to Columbus and confined in the penitentiary, from which he and six others escaped in the following November by making a hole through the bottom of their cell and digging a tunnel under the foundations of the building into the prison-yard. Their only tools for doing this work were two small knives. They then scaled the walls by means of a rope made of their bed clothes, and traveled on the cars until near Cincinnati, when they jumped off the rear car, and, crossing the Ohio in a small breached the Confederate lines in safety. Among the mortally wounded in the fight at Buffington Ford was Major Daniel McCook, the father of eight sons, all of whom were in the Union service, and four of whom became generals. One of his sons, General Robert L. McCook, had been murdered by guerrillas in Tennessee, while riding sick in an ambulance. The old gentleman, who was born in 1796, heard that the man who had killed his son was with Morgan, and hastened from Cincinnati with his rifle to join the pursuers. He was shot in the breast, and though tenderly cared for, died two days afterward. General Rosecrans began to march against Bragg on the 23d of June. His army was divided into three corps, under command of Generals Thomas, A. McDowell McCook, and Crittenden. Rosecrans's object was to capture Chattanooga, which, it will be remembered, General Buell had tried to take in 1862. Chattanooga, which in the Indian language means Hawk's Nest, is a small town in one of the passes of the mountains which separate the Atlantic part of the Southern States from the Mississippi Valley. There are several of these passes or gaps through the ranges of mountains, but that in which Chattanooga lies is one of the most important, because through it runs the Tennessee River and the railroads connecting the eastern with the western part of the Southern States, If the Union troops could take Chattanooga, the Confederacy would be not only cut off from the Mississippi Valley, but would also be in danger of an attack in the rear. Heavy rains made the roads almost impassable, so that Rosecrans could move but slowly. Instead of waiting to fight in Tennessee, as Rosecrans expected, Bragg fell back before him to Bridgeport, in Alabama, losing many men by desertion in the retreat. Rosecrans followed, repairing the railroad as he went, and bringing forward his supplies. Bragg then crossed the Tennessee River, and made his way to Chattanooga. Rosecrans, not feeling strong enough to attack him there, moved around the Confederate left as if he were going to leave Chattanooga and march into Georgia. In the first part of September, General Crittenden was at Wauhatchie (see map), General Thomas at Trenton, and General McCook at Valley Head. To keep Roans from moving on Rome and Atlanta, Bragg gave up Chattanooga, and fell back to Lafayette. Rosecrans, having thus manoeuvred his enemy out of Chattanooga, took possession of that place, and leaving a brigade to hold it, prepared to pursue Bragg, whom he thought to be retreating. But Bragg, who had been joined by Buckner's army and other reinforcements, and who knew that Longstreet was on his way to him from Virginia, had made up his mind to fight, and was moving toward the Union forces. On the morning of September 19 the two armies were opposite each other in the valley of the Chickamauga, a little stream which flows northwardly until it empties into the Tennessee above Chattanooga. In the language of the Indians who used to live among these mountains, Chickamauga means the River of Death. It was probably so called from its stagnant waters, which move so sluggishly as to make its neighborhood sickly, but it was soon to have another reason for its name. Bragg's plan of battle was to drive back Rosecrans's left, so as to get between him and Chattanooga. The battle began about ten o'clock and lasted all day, with no gain for either side, the Confederates failing to get possession of the road leading to Chattanooga. About midnight Longstreet arrived, and was given command of the left wing of Bragg's army, while Polk commanded the right wing. In the Union army McCook held the right, opposite Longstreet, Crittenden the centre, |