Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 35.djvu/285

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The Eleventh Kentucky Cavalry
271

evacuated Clinton and Wayne Counties; and, although the sending of it back there was discussed and advised, it was never sent back. The irksome tour of picket duty along nearly a hundred miles of the course of the Cumberland River was over for good and all. On May 26 the regiment was ordered into camp at Alexandria, Tenn., where Morgan's forces were mobilized in preparation for the Ohio raid. Here the regiments were re-brigaded, the light being again assigned to the 2nd Brigade, which was to be commanded (at least during the raid) by Colonel Adam R. Johnson. Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge, who had commanded the 2nd Brigade up to this time, was not ordered with his regiment (the 9th Kentucky Cavalry) to go on the Ohio raid, having been assigned to other important duty with Bragg's Army.

On June 11 Morgan's command started on their great and disastrous raid by moving out of camp at Alexandria, Tenn. All of the 11th Kentucky Cavalry did not go on this raid, perhaps two hundred of them remaining in Tennessee on other duty. They crossed the river near the village of Rome; and, fighting and skirmishing incessantly, went into camp at Burkesville, where they remained for several days. On the night of July 3 they bivouaced at Columbia, in Adair County. Early on the morning of July 4, 1863, the command reached Green River Bridge, in Adair County, where they found Colonel Orlando H. Moore, of the 25th Michigan, strongly intrenched with his regiment. In attempting to dislodge him from his position, General Morgan had probably the most disastrous engagement of his entire military career. He never made an official report of this battle for the reason that he was taken prisoner before he had an opportunity to do so. General Adam R. Johnson, who commanded the Confederate forces that were actively engaged in this fight, gives the following brief description of it in his interesting book, "The Partisan Rangers":

"After a close and careful examination, I found a short and heavy earthwork thrown up around an abattis, a deep ravine on one side and precipitous bluffs on the other, which prevented any approach except by the direct road to the bridge; the distance between the ravine and the bluff was not more than 150 yards, and was so well and skillfully fortified that I deemed it