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[10] the river. Their cavalry had been scattered through the country, so as to give the men and their horses the means of recruiting. It was divided into two brigades. The first, belonging to Judah's division of the Twenty-third army corps, had its headquarters at Tompkinsville, near the Tennessee line; the headquarters of the second brigade, under General Carter, had remained at Somerset since the recapture of that village. Colonel Wolford, with a considerable detachment, had been stationed by Carter, on the 27th, at Jamestown, but he could not, single-handed, form a connection between the two brigades.

On the 2d of July, early in the morning, Morgan crossed the Cumberland, notwithstanding untold difficulties. Having been able to collect together only small boats, he fastened them side by side, covered them with boards, and thus formed a kind of raft which enabled his men to pass over, while the horses, secured behind the raft, swam across the stream. The first brigade had hardly passed over when the approach of the Federals was signalled. Chance is bringing that way a detachment of Judah's cavalry: it advances without suspicion, and falls into an ambush prepared at the entrance to Burkesville. The Unionists fall back in disorder, and Morgan pursues them with two hundred mounted men as far as the middle of the camp which they had occupied in the morning. The news of this affair throws into a state of excitement all the Federal cavalry in Kentucky; but while the cavalry are gathering Morgan rapidly advances toward the north. On the 3d, in the afternoon, he reaches the town of Columbia, toward which Wolford, on his side, is marching. Captain Jesse M. Carter arrives first with the Union vanguard, but a few moments later, about three o'clock, his troops are attacked by Morgan. Wolford, after having tried to recapture the town, recognizes the superiority of the enemy and promptly retires. In the morning Morgan is already on the banks of Green River, pursuing his march toward the north. The bridge on the highroad, at Tebb's Bend, is occupied by a small guard of two hundred men under the orders of Colonel Orlando M. Moore. On the approach of the enemy, whose summons to surrender he spurns with haughtiness,1 Moore barricades

1 In his reply to Morgan's demand, Moore said, ‘The Fourth of July is no day for me to entertain such a proposition.’

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