Buffington Island

On July 19, 1863, forces clashed at what became known as the Battle of Buffington Island, sometimes called the St. Georges Creek Skirmish, spanning territory in Meigs County, Ohio, and Jackson County, West Virginia. This clash unfolded as part of Morgan's Raid and stands as the largest engagement fought on Ohio soil during the war. Confederate Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan was attempting to cross the Ohio River at a ford near Buffington Island while being pursued by U.S. Army troops, and the fighting there played a key role in his eventual capture.

Held up for a full night, Morgan found his position nearly encircled by Union cavalry when dawn broke. What followed was a disastrous collapse for the Confederates, who saw more than half of their 1,930 troops taken prisoner. Though Morgan managed to break free alongside roughly 700 remaining men, his campaign came to a close on July 26 when he surrendered following the fighting at Salineville. In the end, Morgan's Raid achieved little of strategic value, serving mainly to spread fear among civilians in southern and eastern Ohio as well as parts of Indiana.

Background

John H. Morgan, a Confederate brigadier general, set out from Sparta, Tennessee on June 11, 1863, leading 2,460 cavalrymen and a battery of horse artillery westward. His aim was to pull Union attention in the Army of the Ohio away from Confederate forces stationed in Tennessee. Twelve days into the ride, the Union's Army of the Cumberland launched its Tullahoma Campaign, prompting Morgan to turn his column north instead. The Confederates pushed into Kentucky, clashing repeatedly in small engagements, and eventually seized two steamships to carry them over the Ohio River into Indiana, an act that defied the orders he had been given. There, at Corydon, Morgan's men scattered a militia force in what became known as the Battle of Corydon. With the way ahead largely open, he turned his column east on July 13, passing near Cincinnati and cutting across the southern counties of Ohio while his men helped themselves to horses and provisions along the route.

Federal authorities moved quickly once word of the incursion spread. Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, who commanded the Department of the Ohio, mobilized every soldier he could muster and dispatched Union Navy gunboats up the river to block any Confederate attempt to slip into Kentucky or West Virginia. Cavalry columns under Brig. Gen. Edward H. Hobson took up the chase, trailing a raiding force that had shrunk to 1,930 men through the campaign's losses. Meanwhile, Governor David Tod summoned Ohio's militia, and armed volunteers organized themselves into companies to guard towns and river crossings across the region.

By July 18, after having divided his command earlier in the campaign, Morgan brought his reunited force toward Middleport, a small Ohio river town positioned close to the Eight Mile Island Ford, hoping to use it as his crossing point into West Virginia. His troops came under a barrage of small arms fire as they approached, and were shut out of both the ford and the town itself, which also offered a ferry crossing. Blocked there, Morgan redirected his men toward another crossing point some twenty miles to the northeast, at Buffington Island.

As dusk fell that same day, Morgan's column

Battle

Fog blanketed the morning of July 19 when Henry M. Judah, leading a Union brigade of 1,100 men, finally closed in on Morgan and struck his position across the wide flood plain lying just north of Portland. At nearly the same moment, Edward Hobson's column of 450 men reached the scene as well. During the fierce opening exchanges, Major Daniel McCook, the 65-year-old head of the celebrated Fighting McCooks family, fell mortally wounded. Adding to the pressure, two Union gunboats, the Moose and the Allegheny Belle, pushed into the tight channel dividing Buffington Island from the flood plain and unleashed fire on Morgan's troops, showering them with shell fragments; a third gunboat joined them shortly afterward. Eliakim Scammon also brought 970 soldiers to the field, though his men never entered the actual combat. As a result, Morgan's worn-down command faced only 1,550 Federal troops in action that day.

With his route to the Buffington Island crossing sealed off, Morgan pulled back behind a small rear guard and attempted to push northward along the flood plain in search of another ford. The effort collapsed as advancing Union columns cut his force to pieces amid chaotic fighting. Fifty-two Confederates died, and well over a hundred more suffered serious wounds. Morgan managed to slip past the encirclement with roughly 700 men by following a narrow woodland path. Left behind, however, was his brother-in-law and second-in-command, Colonel Basil W. Duke, who was taken prisoner along with 71 of Morgan's cavalrymen, among them his younger brother John Morgan. Duke surrendered formally to Colonel Isaac Garrard of the 7th Ohio Cavalry.

The exhausted remnants of Morgan's command then pushed upstream toward an unguarded crossing opposite Belleville, West Virginia. There, more than 300 men made their way across the Ohio River, including the notable figures Stovepipe Johnson and the well-known telegraph operator George Ellsworth. While partway across, Morgan realized with alarm that the men still behind him were now cut off, as Union gunboats suddenly appeared on the water. He turned his horse back in midstream and rejoined the survivors still stranded on the Ohio side. For several days afterward, the group searched in vain for a safe place to cross, until Morgan's remaining force was finally captured on July 26 in northern Ohio, following what became known as the Battle of Salineville.

Many of the men seized at Buffington Island, including the bulk of the wounded, were transported by steamboat to Cincinnati as prisoners of war. Morgan and most of his officers ended up confined within the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. Later on, Morgan, Thomas Hines, and a handful of others managed to break free and make their way back to Kentucky.