iversion in favor of General Buckner, who proposed to make a dash
across Kentucky and seize Louisville, and afterward, with Morgan's aid,
to capture Cincinnati. It was also intended to form a nucleus for an
armed counter-revolution in the Northwest, where the "Knights of the
Golden Circle" and the "Sons of Liberty," associations in sympathy with
the South, were strong. But with these ulterior purposes we have
nothing here to do, our text being the incidents of the raid itself.

General Morgan started on this bold adventure on June 27, 1863, with a
force of several thousand mounted men, and with four pieces of
artillery. The start was made from Sparta, Tennessee, where the swollen
Cumberland was crossed in boats and canoes on the 1st and 2d of July,
the horses, with some difficulty, being made to swim.

After successful encounters with Jacob's cavalry and a troop of
Wolford's cavalry, the adventurers pushed on, reaching the stockade at
Green River Bridge on July 4. Here Colonel Moore was strongly intrenched
with a small body of Michigan troops, and sent the following reply to
Morgan's demand for a surrender: "If it was any other day I might
consider the demand, but the 4th of July is a bad day to talk about
surrender, and I must therefore decline."

Moore proved quite capable, with the aid of his intrenchments, of making
good his refusal, Morgan being repulsed, after a brisk engagement, with
a loss of about sixty men, as estimated by Captain Cunningham, an
officer of his staff. Lebanon was taken, after a severe engagement, on
the 5th, yielding the Confederates a good supply of guns and ammunition,
and the Ohio was reached, at Brandenburg, in a drenching rain, on the
evening of the 7th. Here two steamers were seized and the whole force
crossed on the next day to the Indiana shore.

General Morgan's force had been swelled, by recruits gained in
Kentucky, until it now numbered four thousand six hundred men, and its
four guns had become ten. But he was being hotly pursued by General
Hobson, who had hastily got on his track with a cavalry force stronger
than his own. This reached the river to see the last of Morgan's men
safe on the Indiana shore, and one of the steamers they had used
floating, a mass of flames, down the stream.

Hobson's loss of time in crossing the stream gave Morgan twenty-four
hours' advance, which he diligently improved. The advance of Rosecrans
against Bragg had prevented the proposed movement of Bu