{"id":9194,"date":"2016-06-21T18:00:11","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T22:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unclerickaudios.com\/?p=9194"},"modified":"2016-06-21T18:00:11","modified_gmt":"2016-06-21T22:00:11","slug":"a-bold-commander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.characterconcepts.com\/unclerick\/2016\/06\/21\/a-bold-commander\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bold Commander"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was June, 1863 and the Civil War was going badly for the Confederacy in Tennessee.\u00a0 Southern General Braxton Bragg found his army threatened by the much larger northern Army of the Cumberland under General Rosecrans.\u00a0 The situation called for bold measures to draw off some of Rosecrans\u2019 troops and create diversions that would divide his forces. It called for a bold commander.<\/p>\n

A Bold Commander<\/h2>\n

Bragg called on Col. John Hunt Morgan for help.\u00a0 Morgan was known as a bold and innovative cavalry commander whose men followed him with implicit faith and loyalty.\u00a0 His orders were to ride through Tennessee and Kentucky, attacking smaller bodies of Federal troops, cutting communication lines, seizing supplies and horses, and generally creating havoc and confusion for the Yankee army.\u00a0 Hopefully, the ultimate result would be a serious weakening of Rosecrans\u2019 ability to concentrate his forces against Bragg.<\/p>\n

\"john<\/a><\/p>\n

On June 11, Hunt rode out of Sparta, Tennessee and began harrassing the rear of the Federal army.\u00a0 OnJune 23<\/span>, Rosecrans moved against Bragg and Hunt led his 4,000 men into Kentucky to draw off as much Federal power as possible.\u00a0 His men cut telegraph lines, captured hundreds of Yankee soldiers and badly-needed replacement horses and supplies.\u00a0 Then, without the approval of Bragg, Hunt crossed the Ohio River and took the war to the Yankees in Indiana and Ohio.<\/p>\n

Hunt\u2019s Raid, as it was to be called in the history books, coincided in timing with General Robert E. Lee\u2019s invasion of Pennsylvania which would culminate in the great Battle of\u00a0 Gettysburg, but there was no connection between the two events.\u00a0 Hunt\u2019s force took a brutal beating during the campaign and in fact was reduced to 4oo men when Hunt was finally captured trying to cross the Ohio into West Virginia.\u00a0 But his raid had brought results.<\/p>\n

Col. Basil Duke later wrote, “The objects of the raid were accomplished. General Bragg’s retreat was unmolested by any flanking forces of the enemy, and I think that military men, who will review all the facts, will pronounce that this expedition delayed for weeks the fall of East Tennessee, and prevented the timely reinforcement of Rosecrans by troops that would otherwise have participated in the Battle of Chickamauga.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan and his men had disrupted railroads at over 60 points, diverted tens of thousands of Northern troops from other objectives, seized many thousands of dollars\u2019 worth of food and other supplies and captured around 6,000 Yankee soldiers and militia members. \u00a0He had spread terror throughout Indiana and Ohio, causing those states to react with substantial defensive measures.\u00a0 Ohio alone called up 587 companies of local militia.<\/p>\n

Morgan and his depleted force were captured on July 26<\/span> and sent to the Ohio Penitentiary.\u00a0 But on November he and six officers escaped by tunneling out of their cell and scaling the walls.\u00a0 Morgan and four of his fellow escapees were successful in evading the Yankees and made their way safely back to the South.<\/p>\n

More fascinating information about John Hunt Morgan is contained in Portraits of Integrity, a choice inside the Uncle Rick Audio Book Club. Have you subscribed yet?<\/p>\n

Learn More! Or Subscribe below!<\/a><\/h3>\n

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It was June, 1863 and the Civil War was going badly for the Confederacy in Tennessee.\u00a0 Southern General Braxton Bragg found his army threatened by the much larger northern Army of the Cumberland under General Rosecrans.\u00a0 The situation called for bold measures to draw off some of Rosecrans\u2019 troops and create diversions that would divide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2,4,5,6,7],"class_list":["post-9194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-story-saturday","tag-character-concepts","tag-character-stories","tag-helping-parents-raise-kids-of-character","tag-kids-blog","tag-uncle-rick-audio-club"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.characterconcepts.com\/unclerick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.characterconcepts.com\/unclerick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.characterconcepts.com\/unclerick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.characterconcepts.com\/unclerick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.characterconcepts.com\/unclerick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.characterconcepts.com\/unclerick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.characterconcepts.com\/unclerick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.characterconcepts.com\/unclerick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.characterconcepts.com\/unclerick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.characterconcepts.com\/unclerick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}