44G 



A HISTORY OF CAVALRY. 



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[PEUIOD V. 



Morgan's cavalry, and a few words upon the feats 

 performed by these horsemen will tend to prove how 

 effective they were in the peculiar circum8tanc(\s in which 

 they were placed. 



Morgan was said to be the author of the far-reachinir 

 raid. It was probably an original idea with him, for it is 

 extremely likely that he had never heard of the opera- 

 tions of Tehernicheft", Tettenborn, and other partisan 

 leaders, in the rear of the French array in 181)^. His 

 " raids," however, were upon almost the same principle 

 as those of Tchernicheff, or thiit of Dembinski, except 

 thaL he used no infantry and did have two guns. 



His first important raid was made into Kentucky in 

 1862. He started from Knoxville, Tennessee, on the 4th 

 July, and moved through Sparta and Glasgow to Lebanon, 

 where large supplies of stores of every kind were 

 captured. From Lebanon Morgan marched to Harrods- 

 burg, from there on to Lawrenceburg, and then to 

 Midway, a station on the railroad between Frankfort and 

 Lexington. This latter place was the head-quarters of 

 the Federal forces in that region, and both at that point 

 and at Frankfort were large bodies of Federal troops, 

 much superior to the force which Morgan had under 

 his command. 



By skilful marches, by scattering his forces and 

 threatening several points at once, the Federal officers 

 were entirely bewildered, and did not know where to 

 expect a blow. The extreme mobility of his flying 

 column also rendered it difficult to obtain a. y correct 

 information as to Morgan's force or his intentions. The 

 marching capacity of the column may be judged from 

 the fact that at the time it reached Midway it had 

 marched over 300 miles in eight days, and the men were 

 still fresh and in high spirits. 



At Midway, with greatly superior forces on each side 

 of him, the most extraordinary use was made of the 

 telegraph by a Canadian named Ellsworth, who was a 

 most skilful telegraph operator attached to Morgan's 

 staff. By "tapping" the wires he interfered with the 

 arrangements of the Federal generals, sending their 



