Others like them were still finding their different ways back to a world that looked much the same, but was not the same, and never again would be anything like the world they left in 1861 to join John Morgan’s cavalry. They were not certain how they would be received by neighbors, cousins, brothers—who had fought on the other side of the great conflict.
It was Basil Duke, their last leader, who most eloquently expressed their unspoken emotions: “There was no humiliation for these men,” he wrote. “They had done their part and served faithfully, until there was no longer a cause and a country to serve. They knew not what their fate would be, and indulged in no speculation regarding it. They had been taught fortitude by the past, and, without useless repining and unmanly fear, they faced the future.”
FILSON CLUB
General John Hunt Morgan
Colonel Basil W. Duke
Captain Tom Quirk of Quirk’s Scouts
George St. Léger Grenfell, British soldier-of-fortune who joined the 2nd Kentucky in 1862
COURTESY A. H. PACKE
Captain John B. Castleman
FILSON CLUB
Thomas Henry Hines
Lt. George B. Eastin, Co. D
Lt. Kelion F. Peddicord of Quirk’s Scouts
George ( Lightning ) Ellsworth, the 2nd’s daring telegrapher (from a photograph made late in his life)
William C. P. Breckinridge
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY LIBRARY
Martha Ready Morgan and General John Hunt Morgan at the time of their wedding in 1862
Colonel Adam Johnson, who reorganized the survivors of the 2nd Kentucky after the Indiana-Ohio Raid
FILSON CLUB
Colonel Frank Wolford, Union cavalry leader, the 2nd Kentucky’s favorite adversary
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY LIBRARY
Some of Morgan’s Raiders clowning for the photographer. Lt. Leeland Hathaway in center; Lt. Will Hays on right.
COURTESY MRS. JULIAN ELLIOTT, HOPEMONT
The raiders in prison. Captain Charlton Morgan sent this photograph to Kentucky from Fort Delaware in 1864. Four men standing on right are Col. Richard Morgan, Capt. Charlton Morgan, Col. Basil Duke and Lt. J. A. Tomlinson.
CENTURY MAGAZINE, 1891
Escape of John Morgan and his officers from Ohio prison, Columbus, November 27, 1863
CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Camp Douglas prisoners, 1864
CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The yard, Camp Douglas, 1864
ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS, 1865
President Jefferson Davis bids farewell to his cavalry escort (including the 2nd Kentucky) at Washington, Georgia, May 4, 1865. The survivors of the regiment were disbanded four days later.
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NOTES
Abbreviations Used:
CV: Confederate Veteran
FCHQ: Filson Club History Quarterly
KSHS: Kentucky State Historical Society
OR: U.S. War Department. The War of the Rebellion, a Compilation of the Official Records
SHSP: Southern Historical Society Papers
USWD-CR: U.S. War Department. Collection of Confederate Records, National Archives.
I Kentucky Boys Are Alligator Horses
Lexington and the South in 1861: Winston Coleman, Jr., Lexington During the Civil War; Duke, History, 36-90; Holland, 29-41; Ranck, 377; Evans, IX, 32-39; Coulter, 81-137; Kentucky Statesman, August 10, 1858; January-September 1861.
The Lexington Rifles Enter the War: OR, Ser.I, XXX, Pt. 3, 686; Duke, History, 90-91; Holland, 41; Hervey, II, 247; Berry, 4-10; Allen, 38-40; Flint, 69-71; James B. McCreary, “Journal of My Soldier Life,” KSHS, Register, XXXIII (1935), 97-117; Duke, Reminiscences, 32, 78, 291; Winston Coleman, Jr., “Kentucky Watering Places,” FCHQ (1942), XVI, 19-20; Lexington Observer and Reporter, June 21, 1859.
To Green River: Castleman, 73; Allen, 201; Holland, 41-42; Duke, Reminiscences, 291; Berry, 11; Kentucky Adjutant General, Report, Confederate Kentucky Volunteers, War 1861-6$, 548-94; James W. Henning, “Basil Wilson Duke,” FCHQ (1940), XIV, 60-64.
II Green River Cavaliers
Scouting, Training and Horseflesh: OR, Ser.I, LII, Pt. 2, 195-97; Duke, History, 95-106; Berry, 29-34; Holland, 47; Denison, 362; Evans, IX, 37; William Littell, The Statute Law of Kentucky (Frankfort, Ky.), I, 136; Stong, 224; John B. Castleman, “The American Saddle Horse,” U.S. Bureau of Animal Industry, Annual Report, XIX (1902), 62-78; Francis Morris, “Cavalry Horses in America,” U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture, Report, 1863, 159-175; Allen, 24; Maury, 26-28; Kentucky Adjutant General, Report, Confederate Kentucky Volunteers, War 1861-65, 548-49; Ridley, 98-100.
Winter and Withdrawal: OR, Ser.I, VII, 12-13; Set.II, III, 786; Nashville Republican Banner, December 10, 1861; Swiggett, 43; Evans, IX, 37.
Nashville to Murfreesboro: OR, Ser.I, VII, 426-30, 433-34, 904; Berry. 43; Evans, IX, 56; Duke, History, 112-18, 121-32; Johnson, 71; Holland, 68-70; Logan, 36.
Screening Johnston’s Retreat: Evans, IX, 65; Holland, 83-88; Duke, History, 135-36.
III Shiloh
Burnsville to Shiloh: OR, Ser.I, X, Pt. 1, 614; LII, Pt. 1, 29; Johnston, 561-63; Duke, History, 138-39; Ridley, 460; Mosgrove, 61.
The Attack: Basil W. Duke, “Personal Recollection of Shiloh,” Manuscript, Filson Club; Swiggett, 51; Evans, IX, 223; Johnston, 569-85; Duke, Reminiscences, 291, John H. Weller, “History of the Fourth Kentucky Infantry,” SHSP, IX (1881), 108-15; Fitzgerald Ross, “A Visit to the Cities and Camps of the Confederate States,” Blackwood’s Magazine, XCVI (1864), 656; OR, Ser.I, X, Pt. 1, 521-22.
The Battle: Basil W. Duke, “Personal Recollection of Shiloh,” Manuscript, Filson Club; OR, Ser.I, X, Pt. 1, 522, 569, 617-19, 626: Johnston, 586-606; Eisenschiml, 39-49; J. K. P. Blackburn, ‘“Reminiscences of t
he Terry Rangers,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XII (1918), 55.
Rear-Guard Duty: OR, Ser.I, X, Pt. 1, 619; Duke, History, 154-55.
IV The Lebanon Races
Across Tennessee to Lebanon: OR, Ser.I, X, Pt. 2, 437-38, 876; LII, Pt. 2, 306-307, 309; Duke, Reminiscences, 300-301; Evans, IX, 83; Beatty, 102; Duke, History, 156-59; Fitzgerald Ross, “A Month’s Visit to the Confederate Headquarters,” Blackwood’s Magazine, XCIII (1863), 8; Fitzgerald Ross, “A Visit to the Cities and Camps of the Confederate States,” Blackwood’s Magazine, XCVI (1864), 654; Berry, 66-68.
Action in Lebanon: Kentucky Adjutant General, Report, Confederate Kentucky Volunteers, War 1861-6;, 540-56; OR, Ser.I, X, Pt. 1, 884-86; XVI, Pt. 2, 207; XXXII, Pt. 3, 256; Swiggett, 55; Duke, History, 160-63; Ridley, 99-100, 461; Hambleton Tapp, “Incidents in the Life of Frank Wolford,” FCHQ, X (1936), 82-99; Louisville Daily Journal, May 14, 1862; Eastham Tarrant, Wild Riders of the First Kentucky Cavalry; Carl Sager, “A Boy in the Confederate Cavalry,” CV, XXXVI (1928), 374-76.
Adventure in Cave City: OR, Ser.I, X, Pt. 1, 891; Holland, 103; Evans, IX, 83; Duke, History, 164-67.
John Castleman and Company D: USWD-CR, 2nd Kentucky Cavalry, National Archives; Castleman, 73-79; Duke, History, 169-70; Farshler, 163-65; Swiggett, 36; Evans, FX, 95; Scharf, 46.
St. Léger Grenfell: Milford Overley, “Old St. Léger,” CV, XIII (1905), 80-81; U.S. Congress, Case of George St. Léger Grenfel, 598-600, 637; Duke, History, 180-81; A. H. Packe, Letter to the author, August 18, 1958; Lonn, 190; Duke, Reminiscences, 150; W. L. Chew, “Colonel St. Léger Grenfell,” CV, XXXVI (1928), 446.
Affair of Major Coffey: OR, Ser.II, IV, 790, 833; Duke, Reminiscences, 86-90; Holland, 105, 115-16.
V Return to the Bluegrass
Knoxville to Celina: OR, Ser.II, IV, 877; USWD-CR, 2nd Kentucky Cavalry, National Archives; Duke, Reminiscences, 296; Mosgrove, 62-63, 150; Logan, 66-67.