Morgan, John Hunt
Item
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Title
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Morgan, John Hunt
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Alias
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Morgan, John Hunt, 1825-1864
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Gender
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Male
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Biography
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When the Confederate general John Hunt Morgan raided into Kentucky, he gave Northern Kentuckians some of their most suspenseful moments during the Civil War. The great alarm was during his first Kentucky Raid in July 1862, when he struck the Bluegrass and appeared to be marching toward Newport and Covington. By then Morgan, world famous, was moving behind Union lines, where resistance was weak and where he seemed almost invincible.
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Morgan was born in Huntsville, Alabama, and grew up in Lexington, Kentucky. He was manufacturing uniforms when the war began. On the Green River in Kentucky and around Nashville, Tennessee, his success with irregular warfare thrilled the Southern people, and they identified with him as a chivalrous knight, a cavalier from a romantic novel come to life. Southerners call him "Marion of War," for Francis Marion of the Revolutionary War, and he was the model for the Confederate Partisan Ranger Act, authorizing guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines.
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Morgan never intended to be a folk hero, but he stands today as one of the greatest guerrilla commanders in history. Tactics that he employed are used today by special military forces. He sent scouts in every direction, detached squads to burn railroad bridges, and practiced intelligent preparation of the battlefield by sending companies to threaten strongholds he had no intention of attacking. One of the first to use the telegraph, he confused the enemy with the imitative communications deception. George “Lightning” Ellsworth tapped Union telegraph lines and sent messages that lured railroad trains into ambush and made it seem that Morgan's men were threatening when actually they were miles away. The London Times heralded Morgan's use of the telegraph as one of the first innovations of the war. Morgan's raids diverted Union forces from the front and caused the Union Army to expend a great deal of effort in false alarms. Describing how the raiders traveled light, the Louisville Journal noted: “They carry nothing but their arms, which are first class, and their blankets-no haversacks, or any other encumbrance, and live upon the country through which they pass.” (Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky, pages 625-626.)
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Birth date
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1 Jun 1825
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Death date
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4 Sep 1864
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Place of death
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Greenville (Tenn.)
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Held rank
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Colonel
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General
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Bibliographic citation(s)
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Tenkotte, Paul A. and James C. Claypool. The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky, pages 625-626
