Raider & Terrible Men

THE REBEL RAIDER--Howard Swiggett--Bobbs-Merrill ($3.50).

Morgan, Morgan, the raider, And Morgan's terrible men, With bowie knives and pistols, Are galloping up the glen! --Constance Fenimore Woolson.

Partly because he was told in his youth that General John Hunt Morgan, most famed of Confederate cavalry raiders, was a villain, Biographer Swiggett was convinced he was a hero. After long study of the documents in the case, he is not so sure. This biography of one of the most controversial figures of the Civil War will not end the controversy but it does throw some light on another murky corner of U. S. history.

John Hunt Morgan, Alabama-born (1825), was a member of an aristocratic Kentucky family. At 21 he first saw action in the Mexican War, liked it so much that when he went home he founded the Lexington Rifles, which attracted all the young bloods in town. When the Civil War broke, Morgan and his "terrible men" were ready. Morgan was a regular officer, and took orders (when he felt like it) from his superiors, but the North persisted in regarding him as an irregular, capable of every atrocity from horse-stealing to killing the wounded. Biographer Swiggett says Morgan obeyed the rules of civilized warfare, but admits his men were fond of ambushing Federal pickets, of suddenly displaying a flag of truce to get themselves out of a tight corner. Braxton West Pointer, who was Morgan's nominal commander, disliked him, disapproved of his aims and methods. But Morgan's gallantry and success in raiding through Kentucky and Ohio soon made him a bogeyman to the North, a hero to the South. One of his tricks was to capture a telegraph station, send fake messages to foil the enemy. Once he wired to his disgruntled pursuer: "Good morning, Jerry! This telegraph is a great institution. You should destroy it as it keeps me too well posted."

Once with 1,500 men Morgan attacked a Federal garrison of 2,500, got clean away with 1,800 prisoners, some much-needed socks and boots. For this exploit he was made a brigadier-general. Morgan's first wife, an invalid, died in the third month of the war. His second marriage, in 1863, was the social event of the year; Confederate President Jefferson Davis attended, and General Leonidas Polk donned his cast-off bishop's robes to perform the ceremony. That summer Morgan made his most famed raid, a dash into Indiana and Ohio that frightened the inhabitants but ended in defeat and capture for Morgan and most of his men. Imprisoned in the Columbus Penitentiary, Morgan and six of his officers tunneled their way out, got safely back through the Northern lines.

But by this time the Confederacy was a forlorn hope. Morgan's raids were no longer either so daring or so successful. A raid into eastern Tennessee was his last. One rainy morning the house was surrounded by blue troopers; no sentinel had given the alarm. While rifles popped, Morgan dashed out through the garden, dropped dead. At his funeral in Richmond the military escort had to abandon the procession, double-time off toward the threatened defenses.

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