Salineville was a Civil War engagement fought in Ohio, 1863. It was a Union victory.
After escaping encirclement at Buffington's Island with about 400 of his men, Morgan continued east and north, attempting to find a safe crossing over the Ohio River. With several columns of Union cavalry in hot pursuit, Morgan passed through Salineville, riding down the railroad toward Smith's Ford. Turning onto the New Lisbon Road, Morgan's raiders were finally cut off. Morgan surrendered. During this raid, Morgan and his men captured and paroled about 6,000 Union soldiers and militia, destroyed 34 bridges, disrupted the railroads at more than 60 places, and diverted tens of thousands of troops from other duties.
On July 26, 1863, fighting broke out near Salineville, Ohio, in what became known as the Battle of Salineville, part of the American Civil War. There, U.S. Brig. Gen. James M. Shackelford crushed the last of Confederate Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan's cavalry force and took Morgan prisoner, bringing Morgan's Raid to a close. This clash stood as the farthest north any officially sanctioned unit of the Confederate States Army ever engaged in combat.
Setting out from a Tennessee encampment in June 1863, Confederate Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan led 2,460 horsemen on a raid meant to pull the Union Army of the Ohio's focus away from Confederate troops stationed in the state. His orders confined him to Kentucky, yet on July 8, 1863, he pushed across the Ohio River at Brandenburg and pressed into Indiana anyway. Following a win at Corydon, he turned his column eastward toward Ohio, with Brig. Gen. James M. Shackelford's Union soldiers close behind.
By July 19, Morgan sought to slip back across the Ohio River near Buffington Island, above Pomeroy in Meigs County, aiming for West Virginia. A portion of his men made it across into territory held by the Confederacy. The rest fared far worse: Union commanders Edward H. Hobson and Henry M. Judah, both brigadier generals, seized somewhere between 800 and 1,200 of Morgan's soldiers, and roughly 300 more slipped over the river farther upstream under Col. Adam "Stovepipe" Johnson.
That left Morgan with about 400 men, now sealed off from any crossing point. A second bid to ford the river also fell apart, so he pushed north instead, eventually arriving in Columbiana County, all while clinging to hope of finding a way over the Ohio and back to Confederate lines. Along this path lay a string of frightened settlements, among them Moorefield, Harrisville, New Athens, Smithfield, New Alexandria, Wintersville, Two Ridge, Richmond, East Springfield, Bergholz, and Monroeville in Jefferson County. With his horses and men worn thin, Morgan kept moving north as Union forces shut down every route back to the river.
There is some debate over which Confederate action truly deserves the label of northernmost. The St. Albans Raid actually occurred at a higher latitude than what took place at Salineville. Twenty one Confederates crossed down from Canada on October 19, 1864, striking the town of St. Albans, Vermont. Yet these raiders lacked any official standing within the Confederate army, and historians instead trace their mission back to the Confederate Secret Service. Because of this distinction, scholars generally regard West Point, where Morgan gave up his command, as marking the farthest north an officially organized Confederate force ever advanced during the war.
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