John Hunt Morgan

John Hunt Morgan. Frequent Visitor. Confederate cavalry raider Gen. John Hunt Morgan frequently passed through Livingston, strategically located at a crossroads in the Upper Cumberland region. Morgan and his men first came here on July 7, 1862, as they approached the Kentucky line for a successful summer raid. Three weeks later, they returned, and Morgan decided to split his force. Col. Basil W. Duke took one detachment to Sparta while Morgan led the remainder to Knoxville., Later in 1862, the 9th Tennessee Cavalry joined Morgan’s forces: In the spring of 1863, new Confederate conscripts from Overton County joined the 9th Tennessee’s Companies A and E. During Morgan’s famous raid north of the Ohio River into Ohio and Indiana during the summer of 1863, the raiders passed through Livingston on their way to Albany, Kentucky. For a day, members of Companies A and E saw again a landscape that they knew well. Morgan’s troopers cut a swath of destruction in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. When they returned to Tennessee in late July, however their famous commander was not among them, having been captured and confined in the Ohio State Penitentiary. Many soldiers of Companies A and E were also captured and imprisoned temporarily., Morgan escaped late in November 1863 and finally found safety when he crossed back into Tennessee and stopped at Livingston on December 8. Morgan never returned to the county after that. He died less than a year later in Greenville, where he was surrounded and shot while attempting to evade capture again., (Inscription under the photo on the lower left) , Col. Basil W. Duke, (Inscription under the photo in the upper center) , Gen. John Hunt Morgan, (Inscription under the photo in the lower right) , John Hunt Morgan at Cynthiana