Portal:Kentucky/Selected biography/12
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John Hunt Morgan (June 1, 1825 – September 4, 1864) was a Confederate general and cavalry officer in the American Civil War. He led 2,460 troops in a daring raid, called Morgan's Raid, racing past Union lines into Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio in July 1863. This was the farthest north any uniformed Confederate troops penetrated during the war.
Morgan and his cavalrymen fought at the Battle of Shiloh and he soon became a symbol to secessionists in their hopes for obtaining Kentucky for the Confederacy. A Louisiana writer, Robert D. Patrick, compared Morgan to Francis Marion and wrote that "a few thousands of such men as his would regain us Kentucky and Tennessee."
He unnerved Kentucky's Union military government and President Lincoln received so many frantic appeals for help that he complained that "they are having a stampede in Kentucky."
