July 12, 1862

July 12, 1862:  Maj. Gen Don Carlos Buell, slowly inching his way to Chattanooga while guarding and protecting railroads, hears of Morgan’s raids into Kentucky, and in response orders a squadron (two companies) of the 3^rd Ohio Cavalry Regiment to go see what Morgan is up to.  Meanwhile, Morgan’s telegraph operator, a Canadian named Ellsworth, taps the Yankee telegraph lines to learn that McClellan had not taken Richmond (as the Rebels had been misinformed); he also sends his own message to the Yankees in Louisville that Forrest had captured Murfreesboro, Tennessee (which was pure fiction).  On the evening of July 11^th, Morgan’s men encounter a small Federal force at a bridge outside of Lebanon, Kentucky.  The Rebels fire a cannon and chase them off, but just on the outskirts of town they encounter the Federals again, a force of 500 sent by rail from Louisville.  A sporadic firefight lasts for a couple of hours, but at around 10 PM, the Federals retreat, and the town surrenders to Morgan.  The Union commander at Lousiville, Gen. Jeremiah Boyle, panics and begs Buell for reinforcements.  (Morgan had issued a proclamation for all Kentuckians to rise up and join him, and Boyle is nearly unhinged by the thought of the entire state up in arms against the Union.)  Boyle claims that he has beatedn Morgan at Lebanon, and yet follows with the news that Morgan has burnt the town and that “the whole State will be in arms if General Buell does not send a force to put it down. . . . Morgan is devastating with fire and sword.”  Boyle pleads for more cavalry.

Col. John Hunt Morgan, CSA

---Georgeanna Woolsey, a nurse with the U.S. Sanitary Commission in Virginia, writes in her journal:

The Medical Department is greatly improved, and the Sanitary Commission, who were chiefly instrumental in putting in the new Surgeon-General (Hammond), who in his turn has put in all the good new men, finds its work here at an end, and might as well retire gracefully. Four thousand sick have been sent north from Harrison’s. . . . The Maratanza gave me a piece of the balloon found on the rebel gun-boat Teaser. It was made of the old silk dresses of the ladies of Richmond, forty or more different patterns. They gave me, too, the signal flag of the little imp. We went over her to see the damage the shell did her, bursting into the boiler and disemboweling her.

The army is quiet and resting, and the surgeons of the regiments have been coming in constantly to the Sanitary Commission supply boat with requisitions for the hospitals. We are giving out barrels of vegetables. The Small will run up the river and be ready to fill a gap in bringing off our wounded prisoners, and it will be a comfort to do something before going home ignominiously.