Morgan's Christmas Raid was carried out by Confederate Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan between December 22, 1862, and January 5, 1863. Morgan intended to cut the supply lines to the Union Army of the Cumberland in Tennessee. The Union used the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and Morgan had identified two 500-foot (150 m) long trestle bridges at Muldraugh Hill that could be burnt. Morgan's 4,000-strong cavalry force left Alexandria, Tennessee, on December 22 and passed into Kentucky on Christmas Eve, defeating part of the 2nd Michigan Cavalry Regiment near Tompkinsville. They fought and defeated an Indiana cavalry detachment on Christmas Day at Bear Wallow, Barren County. The U.S. Army sent forces under Colonel John Marshall Harlan and Major General Joseph J. Reynolds to try to catch Morgan. However, Morgan used ruses to distract his pursuers. Morgan captured a Union stockade at Bonnieville on December 26 and on December 27 captured Elizabethtown before burning the bridges at Muldraugh Hill.
Harlan's men found part of Morgan's force under Colonel Basil W. Duke near Boston at Lebanon Junction on the Rolling Fork River, on Monday, December 29. This area was home to many men in Harlan's brigade, the regiment. Despite being slightly outnumbered by Morgan's total numbers, the brigade was concentrated and outnumbered Morgan's force at Boston. Harlan effectively used it to surprise Morgan's scattered cavalry and drive them off. Duke made several spoiling attacks on Harlan's brigade to give his men time to escape across the Rolling Fork. Morgan returned to Tennessee via Bardstown, New Haven and Springfield. He bypassed a Union force at Lebanon on December 30 and burnt a stockade at Tebbs' Bend. The raid ended with his arrival at Smithville, Tennessee, on January 5, 1863.
Morgan's men covered 500 miles (800 km) in the raid, killed or wounded 150 Union soldiers, and captured more than 1,800. He had also caused more than $2 million in damage to Union infrastructure, including the railroad. In return, Morgan suffered losses of just 2 men killed, 24 wounded, and 64 missing. The raid has been described as "arguably Morgan's most successful foray of the war".
The U.S. Army had reestablished partial control of Tennessee in early 1862, with Nashville being recaptured by the Army of the Cumberland under Major General Don Carlos Buell in February and Memphis in June. Confederate forces were thereafter confined to the eastern and middle portions of the state. Neighbouring Kentucky had declared neutrality at the start of the war but rejected the Confederacy and reaffirmed allegiance to the Union after a Confederate invasion by Major General Leonidas Polk in September 1861.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
This page covers Morgan's Christmas Raid into Kentucky 1862. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.