Morgan's First Kentucky Raid
Somerset, Pulaski County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
Morgan's First Raid. CSA General John H. Morgan's first Kentucky raid covered 1,000 miles, July 4 to July 28, 1862-24 days. Left Tenn. with 900 men, returned with 1200, captured 17 towns, 300 horses, destroyed Union supplies. Here, July 21, Morgan took over telegraph line and countermanded USA orders to pursue. Destroyed commissary stores, wagons, arms. Moved on to Monticello. See map. Erected in 1964.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
In July 1862, Confederate cavalry commander John Hunt Morgan launched his first raid into Kentucky, riding roughly 1,000 miles in 24 days and returning with more men than he set out with. Passing through Somerset, his raiders seized the telegraph, countermanded Union orders, and destroyed commissary stores, wagons, and arms. By the raid's end he claimed to have captured 17 towns and hundreds of horses.
Why it matters
Morgan's fast-moving raids showed how a small mounted force could sow disruption far behind enemy lines, tying down Union troops across the Kentucky theater.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John Hunt Morgan
Related events
- · Morgan's First Kentucky Raid
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Burnside
Burnside, KY
This spot on the upper Cumberland began as Point Isabel, one of the small settlements planted by families drifting west from the Carolinas and Virginia around 1800 in search of new farmland on the Kentucky frontier. Its greatest moment came in 1863, when the Union army recognized the strategic value of the site and turned it into a rendezvous point and supply depot. From here troops and provisions were staged for the push into East Tennessee, part of the Federal effort to break Confederate control of that mountainous, Unionist-leaning region.
McCreary County
McCreary County, KY · est. 1969
Established in 1912 from parts of Pulaski, Wayne, and Whitley counties, McCreary County was the last of Kentucky's 120 counties. It took its name from James B. McCreary—a Confederate cavalry colonel who became a lawyer, twice governor of Kentucky, and a long-serving congressman between the 1860s and the early twentieth century.
Laurel Seminary
London, KY
Laurel Seminary grew from an 1826 act of the Kentucky legislature that set aside land to fund education in Laurel and other counties. The land was eventually sold and the seminary opened in 1858, only to be pressed into service as a hospital during the Civil War. In 1900 Governor W. S. Taylor even convened a special session of the legislature here, and the institution carried on as a common, private, and public school into the twentieth century.
Battle of London
London, KY
On August 17, 1862, Confederate Colonel John S. Scott led 500 cavalry against roughly 200 Union soldiers and 98 convalescents under Colonel L. C. Houk at London. The lopsided fight cost the Union thirteen killed, seventeen wounded, and over a hundred captured along with forty wagons, while Scott lost only a handful of men. Driven back to George W. Morgan's main force at Cumberland Gap, Houk's defeat helped sever Union supply lines and set the stage for Morgan's long retreat to Ohio.