On December 20, the new organization moved from its camps around Murfreesboro to Alexandria. Next morning farriers completed last-minute shoeing of horses; the men cleaned their rifles, burnished boots and leather equipment; officers inspected arms and horses.
That afternoon the regiment passed in review before General Morgan and his bride. The weather was pleasant, the columns marching against a background of dark cedars and leafless trees topped by mistletoe white with its blossoms of the holiday season. “It was Sunday, and a clear lovely day,” Lieutenant James McCreary recorded. “As company after company moved forward into line with horses prancing, firearms glistening, bugles blowing, and flags waving, and with our artillery on the right flank and finally halted in a beautiful valley with bright eyes and lovely faces gaping at us, it formed a grand and imposing scene.” Never again would John Morgan command such a body of men, four thousand strong, the majority seasoned veterans mounted on the best Kentucky and Tennessee horseflesh left in the South.
For some reason, St. Léger Grenfell chose that grand Sunday at Alexandria to say farewell to the boys of the 2nd Kentucky. He mounted his best horse, and with his hunting dogs trailing after him rode back toward Murfreesboro to ask Braxton Bragg for another assignment. Few were ever certain why Old St. Lege departed their company so suddenly. One story had it that he disliked Billy Breckinridge and had quarreled with Morgan because the General appointed Breckinridge commander of the 2nd Brigade. Another belief was that he had a bellyful of the lack of discipline in the ranks. Grenfell himself said afterward that he and Morgan “had a conflict on a point of duty, in which he got exceedingly angry so I left him and reported to General Bragg, who made me inspector of cavalry.”
Most of the boys would see him again briefly during the winter, and then again toward the end of the war some would become intimately acquainted with this romantic swarthy knight under rather strange circumstances. The troopers of the 2nd would never forget Old St. Lege. From him they had learned the principles of courage combined with those of survival, and horse soldiers could ask for little more.
Before daybreak on the twenty-second, reveille sounded in the Alexandria camps. Horses were fed, watered, and saddled, and breakfast fires lighted. The march out was set for nine o’clock. It was a soft mild morning, like early autumn, the sun bright in a cloudless sky, birds twittering in the cedars. The order of march called for Quirk’s scouts and the 2nd Kentucky to take the advance, Duke riding with John Hutchinson at the head of his old regiment. Except for the regimental commanders none knew exactly where they were going, but all were sure they would be in Kentucky for Christmas and that was enough.
For two hours columns of fours marched out of the frost-browned, cedar-fringed meadows until regiments were strung out for seven miles. Suddenly above the steady hoofbeats and the creak of leather, tremendous cheers broke far back down the column. The boys of the 2nd knew what the cheering meant; Morgan had bid his bride farewell and was coming up front to join them. “Alongside the column,” said Bennett Young, “with a splendid staff, magnificently mounted, superbly dressed, riding like a centaur, bare-headed, with plumed hat in his right hand, waving salutations to his applauding followers, the general came galloping by.”
Just before winter’s dusk, the 2nd, with both Morgan and Duke forward, reached Sand Shoals ford on the Cumberland. The men crossed without incident and went into camp on the north side.
At daylight they were moving again, Morgan aiming for Tompkinsville, but the plodding artillery held the columns back. When they crossed the Kentucky line, the short December day was closing, a full moon lighting the sky. “Cheer after cheer and shout after shout echoed for miles toward the rear of the column, breaking the stillness of the night,” James McCreary noted in his journal. “Tonight we are camped on the sacred soil of old Kentucky and it fills my heart with joy and pride to know that I am once more on my native heather…campfires illuminate every hill and valley and the fires burn brighter, seemingly are more cheerful, because it is the fatherland.”
To celebrate the Christmas Eve march from Tompkinsville to Glasgow, several of the boys foraged some “swell head brandy,” and a few overdid their seasonal imbibing, growing “too heavy for their saddles,” and had to be strapped on by their more sober comrades.
During the afternoon the 2nd Regiment overtook an enormous wagon drawn by twenty Percheron horses, “perhaps the largest wagon ever seen in the State of Kentucky.” The driver was a Union sutler, bound for Glasgow with Christmas delicacies for the Federal camps there; consequently the boys captured it immediately. According to Tom Berry it contained “a fabulous variety and quantity of good things to eat,” and that night every mess in the brigade had something to brighten their otherwise drab Christmas suppers.
The regiments bivouacked that night five miles below Glasgow, scouts having brought reports of strong Union cavalry movements in the area to the north. “’Tis Christmas Eve,” wrote James McCreary. “I am sitting with many friends—around a glorious camp-fire. Shouting, singing and speechifying make the welkin ring, for the boys have a superabundance of whisky and are celebrating Christmas Eve very merrily. We have not seen an enemy yet.”
2
While the main body of the expedition was making camp south of Glasgow, Tom Quirk and his scouts approached the town. From friends along the way, Quirk learned that the 2nd Michigan Cavalry was patrolling in the vicinity, but the enemy’s exact location was unknown.
Quirk, having a mighty Irish thirst and a desire to celebrate Christmas Eve, took his scouts in to a Glasgow saloon. As the advance platoon was dismounting and hitching horses to the front rail, a patrol of Michigan boys came cantering down the street with the same objective in view—a glass of Christmas cheer. Scout Kelion Peddicord laconically described the unexpected meeting: “A collision was the result, then a skirmish, then—a stampede of all parties!”
In their hasty “stampede” the scouts captured a pair of Michigan stragglers, then turned back toward camp. Along the way, Quirk and Peddicord stopped at several Christmas parties, “long enough to enjoy a dance with some of the girls, very much to their surprise—and gratification, they said. They had not the remotest idea that Morgan was near. But we danced our set, though the whole country was alive with the enemy.”
With Quirk’s company of scouts on this raid was seventeen-year-old Johnny Wyeth (later to serve with General Forrest and become his first biographer). Quirk had refused to enlist Wyeth because of his age, but allowed him to ride along as a sort of “independent” member of the company.
Wyeth afterward recorded the events of Christmas Day, how the scouts marched early through Glasgow, then swiftly up the pike toward Munfordville. “About two o’clock in the afternoon, at Bear Wallow, our company was well in front of Morgan’s command when the vidette came back with the information that the road was full of Yankees just ahead. With his usual reckless dash, Quirk drew his six-shooter and, yelling to his company of about forty-five men to draw theirs, he dashed down the road toward the enemy. War was a new experience to me, and it was very exciting as we swept down the road at full tilt. Right ahead of us, as we swung around a turn, stretched across the turnpike, and field to one side of the road, was a formidable line of Federal cavalry. The number in sight evidently checked the enthusiasm of our plucky captain, for, as they opened fire upon us and one or two of our men were wounded, he told us to dismount and fight on foot, which we promptly did, leaving our horses with ‘No. 4’ and advancing some hundred yards further down the lane.”
The Federals, however, had set an ambush, and as the horse-holders formed a corral in a corner of the field, the concealed enemy rushed up to an adjoining rail fence, firing into the horses and stampeding them. “Our one chance,” said Wyeth, “was to climb over the fence on the other side of the lane which we speedily did. Quirk and I went over the same panel, with the Federals shooting at us from the fence across the road, no more than thirty or forty feet distant. We got over safely
without any delay and ran across the field, making the best possible time to take refuge in a thicket.”
As soon as they were under cover, Johnny Wyeth turned around and was shocked to see blood spurting down Quirk’s face. “The damn Yankees’ve shot me twice in the head,” Quirk growled in his thick brogue, “but I’ll get even with them before the sun sets.” He wiped the blood out of his eyes and swore an Irish oath. “Johnny, I want you to go back to the rear as fast as you can. Tell my men if they don’t come back here and help me clean these fellows out, I’ll shoot the last damn one of them myself.”
Johnny Wyeth worked his way back to the rear, and met Duke and Hutchinson coming up with Company A. A few minutes later the Federals were surrounded and forced into surrender.
When Morgan arrived on the scene and found Quirk with a bloody handkerchief around his head, he ordered the Irishman to see a surgeon. But Quirk only grinned and declared he had a head built in County Kerry, so toughened by shillelaghs that a couple of bullet wounds were mere trifles. He gathered his scouts and resumed march in advance of the 2nd.
All afternoon the wintry skies had been thickening, and before dark a cold rain began falling. The regiments crossed Green River in a downpour, and turned toward Hammondsville over a road which was quickly churned into mud, yellow torrents foaming down the side ditches. That night they camped under beating rain only seven miles from the enemy’s dry and cozy stockades along the L.&N. Railroad.
At reveille the icy rain was still falling, men fumbling for saddles in the winter dark, trying vainly to dry their weapons. On the chance that the Federals might have guessed the raiders’ main objective—the Muldraugh’s Hill trestles thirty miles to the north—Morgan and his staff decided to take advantage of the proximity of the Bacon Creek bridge and strike a damaging blow there. If Muldraugh’s Hill turned out to be unassailable, at least they could turn back south with one good bridge out on the railroad. Some of the junior officers who had been in the old squadron recalled that they had destroyed that Bacon Creek bridge twice before; it seemed to be becoming a habit.
Lieutenant Colonel Hutchinson and the 2nd drew the bridge assignment, the other regiments proceeding slowly northward toward Elizabethtown. Basil Duke accompanied Hutchinson, but left the command responsibility to the latter, and on that day the twenty-four-year-old Lieutenant Colonel proved himself a capable successor to Morgan and Duke.
John Hutchinson was well over six feet tall, powerfully built, with a head like a hawk’s—an aquiline nose, dark piercing eyes, close-cropped black hair. Mounted on his oversized gray charger, he led his men confidently down to the railroad bridge at Bacon Creek. Since the 2nd’s last visit a year before, the Federals had constructed a massive stockade within a hundred yards of the bridge, close enough so that the bridge’s entire length could be covered by loophole fire.
In the bleak December rain the bridge appeared invulnerable, but Hutchinson ordered up one of the Parrott guns captured at Hartsville, and while heavy shells smashed away at the sturdy stockade, he sent details in to fire the bridge. Several times fires were started, to drown in the incessant rain. Hutchinson himself crawled up behind the railroad embankment, tossing lighted brands upon the structure only to see them shot away by the accurate Federal sharpshooters.
As a last resort, a truce party was sent into the stockade, informing the defenders that they were surrounded by Morgan’s men. The magic name of Morgan turned the trick; the stockade surrendered.
The bridge was now quickly set ablaze, and for good measure the men built huge fires along the tracks for several miles, ripping up rails to heap upon them. They knocked down telegraph poles, adding them to the fires, twisted the wires around trees and tossed rolls of it into nearby streams.
For a few days at least, Rosecrans’ Nashville base was cut off from Louisville, and now nothing lay between Morgan’s men and the Muldraugh’s Hill trestles but thirty miles, and well-defended Elizabethtown.
On the morning of December 27, the advance regiments were within six miles of Elizabethtown, and a quick sweep around would have brought them to the trestles by late afternoon. Morgan, however, decided that it would be wiser to capture the town’s garrison, rather than risk being caught between the forces there and those at the trestles.
In the line of march that morning, Duke and Morgan were up front with Colonel Cluke’s 8th Kentucky, the 2nd having fallen in at the rear after the raid at Bacon Creek. During the night the skies had cleared, and it was “a lovely sunny day, all nature seemed to be sparkling and smiling.”
As the forward scouts approached the outskirts of Elizabethtown, they saw a Union corporal coming down the muddy road; he was waving a truce flag. The scouts held their horses warily until the corporal came up and asked in a thick Dutch accent for their commander. They took him into custody and hustled him back to Morgan, the corporal saluting stiffly and handing over a message scrawled on the back of an envelope:
ELIZABETHTOWN, KY., DEC. 27, 1862
TO THE COMMANDER OF THE CONFEDERATE FORCES:
SIR; I demand an unconditional surrender of all your forces. I have you surrounded, and will compel you to surrender. I am, sir, your obedient servant,
H. S. SMITH
Commanding U. S. Forces
Morgan could barely conceal his amusement, but he was in no mood for joking, and quickly sent a reply back to Colonel Smith informing him that it was his forces which were surrounded, not the Confederates, and that the Federal garrison should surrender. In a second message Smith refused to capitulate, and Morgan replied briefly that he would give the defenders time to remove women and children, and then would attack.
Duke had already dismounted Cluke’s 8th, keeping the 2nd in reserve, and Morgan had sent the battery up on a hill to the left of the road, from where the gunners could fire down into the town. Colonel Smith’s six hundred Union soldiers were concentrated in brick residences and in two or three large warehouses facing the south, and it was into these that the Parrott guns and howitzers began to drop their shells while the dismounted men of the 8th moved in.
The fighting was brisk and noisy for a few minutes, and the six hundred Federals soon had enough of grape and canister. Even before Colonel Smith gave the final order to surrender, his men began waving white flags from windows.
Mounting up, Lieutenant McCreary rode down past one of the brick houses which had been heavily shelled. To his surprise “several very handsome young ladies” appeared in the front yard. They asked him to come in and have some refreshments. “I dismounted and went in. Saw that a shell had entered the window, exploded and killed three Yankees, who were then weltering in their blood on the floor, and I was informed it wounded others. With hair disheveled, these ladies like proud Spartans walked contemptuously through the blood of those who had insulted them and invited me into a room where there were many quarts of wine, cakes, etc. I did justice to Christmas, and a hungry stomach, and ample justice, I hope to the dear fair ones. At another place I met five or six ladies, had refreshments, and wrote a letter home. These so dear Kentucky ladies have a charm which no others possess.”
As the work of rounding up scattered Federals, and disarming and paroling them, delayed the raiders until late in the afternoon, Morgan decided to make a temporary fortress of Elizabethtown and wait out the night. His men had six hundred extra rifles at their disposal now, and an abundance of Federal ammunition. Except for the unlucky ones who drew vidette and patrol duties, all spent a pleasant evening in Elizabethtown. As Lieutenant McCreary noted: “An old Southern friend gave our quartermaster a barrel of superb whisky. It was reasonably dealt out and now all goes merrily as a marriage bell.”
Next morning they were bugled out early, Quirk’s scouts and the 2nd in advance again, and before noon both brigades were in position around the two long wooden trestleworks—the principal objective of this Christmas raid. Morgan sent truce parties in to both stockades, offering the defenders a chance to surrender, but again as at Elizabetht
own the Federals were determined to make a fight of it.
The attacks began simultaneously, Duke’s brigade against the upper trestle, Breckinridge’s against the lower. After two or three hours’ shelling, the 71st Indiana Infantry ran up white flags on both stockades, and 650 prisoners marched out to surrender.
Sergeant Henry L. Stone, one of the few Indianians in Morgan’s command, chose this opportunity to write a letter to his mother in Greencastle, hoping to have it delivered by one of the Indiana parolees. “Dear Mother…At the railroad trestleworks we captured the 71st Indiana, including Billy Brown and Court Mattson. Lt. Col. Brown appeared very glad to see me indeed. I was surprised to see him.…I happened to go up to the house in which Gen. Morgan had his headquarters and I hadn’t more than seated myself by the fire when I looked around and recognized Brown sitting by the same fire. I says ‘Hello! Brown, what are you doing here?’ He looked for some time and recognized me at last and shook my hand heartily. After talking a little I took my canteen and called him aside to take a heavy horn of good old Cogniac brandy. I think he took about three drinks. Next morning I wrote a letter and he said he would take it home to you for me, and I think he will.
“Mother, to say I’ve never wished to be at home and sleep once more in a feather bed would be telling an untruth, but I never enjoyed any life as well as this.…When we’ll leave the state I don’t know, neither do I know where General Morgan expects to concentrate his forces.…I’m well now excepting a cold. Not a day’s sickness or a dose of medicine have I taken since joining the service.…I know it’ll prove a great benefit to my health and I’ll try to prevent its seriously injuring my morals. It is true that I take a little spirits occasionally, for these cold mornings it is beneficial. I’ve seen almost the infernal regions on earth since I left home but have endured it all and today rejoice that I’m a Confederate soldier.…I wish I could have been home at Christmas and took some turkey.”