Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 35.djvu/288

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Southern Historical Society Papers.

got safely back to Dixie by swimming the Ohio river on their horses, on the evening of July 16, under the leadership of the indomitable Adam R. Johnson; and a few more escaped capture at Buffington Island only to be made prisoners a few days later (July 26), when the intrepid Morgan made his last stand in Columbia County, Ohio, and surrendered with the remaining remnants of his gallant command. At that time Second Lieutenant Rodney Haggard, of Company A, was the ranking officer of the fragment of the 11th Kentucky Cavalry that still remained with Morgan, whose forces then were about 300, all told, and were surrounded by about 80,000 Federals, including regulars, volunteers, militia, home guards, and "squirrel hunters," who had flocked from all quarters to beset him. The point where they surrendered was "the farthest north" attained by any Confederate force marching directly from the South during the war. The St. Albano, Vermont, raid was made by twenty Confederate soldiers, mostly escaped prisoners of war, from Canada.

After their capture the prisoners were sent to Cincinnati, where they constituted quite a rare show for the populace; and from thence they were sent to Camp Chase, Ohio, Camp Morton, Ind., and Camp Douglas, Ill.; though eventually most of them were assembled at Camp Douglas. The officers were imprisoned at various places – the Ohio penitentiary, at Columbus ; Johnson's Island, Ohio; Allegheny penitentiary, Pa.; Point Lookout, Md., and Fort Delaware, Del. It was claimed that the officers were confined for a while in the Georgia penitentiary.

While Major McCreary was a prisoner at Fort Delaware, 600 Confederate officers including him, were put on a steamer, with a Federal gunboat as a convoy, and sent to Morris Island, opposite Charleston, S. C., and put under fire as retaliation because a number of Federal officers had been imprisoned by order of President Davis at Charleston while that city was being bombarded by Federal batteries, and the women and children and non-combatants compelled to flee for safety to the woods. It was believed by Mr. Davis that if he placed Federal officers in Charleston the Federal batteries would cease to bombard the city, and permit women and children and non-combatants, who had been suffering from disease and exposure to return to their homes, but the Federal authorities, as a retaliation, sent the 600