One of Morgan's Men: Memoirs of Lieutenant John M. Porter of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry

10 Our March Was Cautious

141 10 OUR MARCH WAS CAUTIOUS Lieutenant John M. Porter’s most notable achievement as a soldier was a scout that he, Captain Thomas H. Hines, and a select group of twelve other men from Company E, Ninth Kentucky Cavalry (C.S.A.), made in February 1863. Most of them were from Butler County, Kentucky, so chosen because they were intimately familiar with the area of operations. Apart from the official report of Captain Thomas H. Hines prepared at Liberty, Tennessee, on March 3, 1863, which singles out Porter for conspicuous praise, Porter’s own account in this and the succeeding chapter is the only one known to exist of the famed operation. The scouting party departed from Liberty, Tennessee, on February 7, 1863. The object of the scout was to proceed to the Barren River, not far from Bowling Green, Kentucky, to destroy Federal transport vessels that were plying the rivers between Bowling Green and the Ohio River at Evansville, Indiana. Because Morgan had so thoroughly destroyed the trestles of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in December 1862, Rosecrans’s Federal army in Nashville and Murfreesboro was relying on transport vessels that operated from Louisville down the Ohio River to the Green River and up the Green River to the Barren River to Bowling Green, Kentucky, for supplies . The L&N would bring the supplies to Nashville from Bowling Green. Morgan determined that a select body of men, operating under cover, could destroy those vessels and interrupt Rosecrans’s desperately needed shipments of stores. ONE OF MORGAN’S MEN 142 Porter and his men crossed the Cumberland River at Granville, Tennessee , and reached the vicinity of Bowling Green, Kentucky, on February 11. Their presence given away by a deserter, the men disbanded on the night of February 20. They first returned to Tennessee and then reentered Kentucky . An attempt to seize a transport vessel on the Barren River was foiled by the presence of Federal cavalry. Porter and his men headed for Butler County. What followed were scenes reminiscent of those recounted by members of the Virginia battalion of partisan rangers commanded by Colonel John Singleton Mosby: movements at night, hiding in the woods or outbuildings of friends and sympathizers, and avoiding enemy patrols in an effort to complete the mission. There is one more scout, the particulars of which I will give. The party consisted of about fourteen men; among the number were Andy Kuykendall, Ayres Curtis, William Shephard McKinney, James K. Clark, James H. Holland, Joseph S. Gray, Edgar L. Mitchell, William White, Thomas Hines and myself, perhaps one or two others. It was in February 1863. Our command was in camp at Liberty. Permission was obtained to make a scout into Kentucky and injure the enemy as much as possible.1 Accordingly we made a detail as above and started; the first day’s march was free of any incident worth relating for we were yet in our line. The second day, however, we reached and crossed the Cumberland River at the little town of Granville , some distance above Carthage. The boats were rickety and dangerous; finally, however, all were safely over, and we found ourselves in the enemy’s country where we were likely, at any moment, to meet with a body of the enemy’s cavalry. Our march was cautious and at the same time as rapid as possible under the circumstances. Fortunately for us, we came through the entire route and saw no enemy. We came to the Louisville and Nashville Railroad near Woodburn in Warren County one evening some time before night. Our OUR MARCH WAS CAUTIOUS 143 dress consisted of a Federal uniform over our Confederate uniforms, and we were very easily passed among the citizens as Yankees. By this means, we passed through a section where we were known.2 The day of which I speak, we came on by the Pleasant Grove Academy in Simpson County and reached the vicinity of South Union about dark. After crossing the railroad there, we went directly to Clear Fork Church and remained till about daylight, when we moved on the creek back of William H. Duncan’s farm. Here we were well fed and cared for by the neighbors until evening when we heard that our presence in the country had been made known by the capture of a deserter by the name of Dr. Samuel Garvin the day previous. We...