The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South
Alexander Kelly McClure, Ed.

[763] of Columbiana county, on the 26th. The force which pursued him from Buffington was a semi-brigade under Colonel B. H. Bristow, of the Eighth Kentucky Cavalry, an officer noted for his indomitable grip, and regarded as the most relentless and persistent pursuer in all our forces. He did not, as Duke says, “surround” Morgan, in the usual accepted meaning of that term among soldiers. He rode onto him-tread off his tail and rear, as it were-and finally rode over and through him, scattered his men right and left, and, turning about, faced the flying raiders and forced them to halt and succumb.

Thus ended the boldest, the only really successful raid of the war on either side. The capture and destruction of Morgan's command were trifling losses to the Confederacy compared to advantages it gained by his operations. He destroyed no supplies; hardly touched, let alone injured, our lines of communication; captured nothing of any moment to him or anybody, save some forage, food, a miscellaneous collection of merchandise, and a comical wagon train. But he delayed the invasion of East Tennessee three months. He thus broke the plan of co-operation, and delayed Rosecrans at Murfreesboro, giving Bragg time to get back the men He had loaned Johnston. Instead of a strong joint movement, Burnside and Rosecrans found all they could attend to as each approached his objective. The latter was so late in pressing his enemy into decisive action that that enemy had time to obtain reinforcements from Lee and Chattanooga; and instead of being a base from which the Federal army dictated terms to a quarter of the Confederate territory, came near being that army's coffin. Had Morgan been readily beaten back from Kentucky in a crippled condition, Burnside would have met Rosecrans at Chattanooga by the 20th of July; the battle of Chickamauga would not have been fought; the war would have been abbreviated, how much General Duke treats Judah and Burnside as separate, independent commanders. He says: “Burnside was” --in June, 1863-“concentrating in Kentucky a force for the invasion of Tennessee, variously estimated at from twenty to more than thirty thousand men.” Further on, he says: “It was estimated that on the Kentucky and Tennessee border there were at least ten or twelve thousand Federal troops under command of General Judah-five thousand of which were excellent cavalry.” Again: “Bragg's chief object was to delay Judah and Burnside — the latter especially-to retard their advance and junction with Rosecrans,” etc. Very little research would have enabled the general to present the real relation between these officers, and the truth, as to the troops they commanded, is surely not difficult to come at. Judah was a subordinate