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Skirmish Near Pekin

Location: East of 5910 East Greenbriar Road West, Pekin (Washington County), Indiana 47165

Installed: 2005 Indiana Historical Bureau and East Washington Lions Club

ID# : 88.2005.1

Text

Side one:

On July 8, 1863, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and his men crossed the Ohio River at Brandenburg, Kentucky and entered Indiana. As a diversion on July 11, Confederate Captain William J. Davis and his troops crossed the Ohio River at Twelve Mile Island, Kentucky and were attacked. Davis and part of his force escaped into Indiana.

Side two:

Heading to Salem on July 11, Davis and some of his men were captured near Pekin by 73rd Indiana Volunteers and a detachment of the 5th U.S. Regulars. Davis and several other soldiers were taken to New Albany and secured in the county jail. On July 13, Morgan's Indiana raid ended as he rode east out of Harrison on the Indiana-Ohio state border.

Keywords

Military

Annotated Text

On July 8, 1863, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and his men crossed the Ohio River at Brandenburg, Kentucky and entered Indiana.(1) As a diversion on July 11, Confederate Captain William J. Davis and his troops crossed the Ohio River at Twelve Mile Island, Kentucky and were attacked.(2) Davis and part of his force escaped into Indiana.(3)

Heading to Salem on July 11, Davis and some of his men were captured near Pekin by 73rd Indiana Volunteers and a detachment of the 5th U.S. Regulars.(4) Davis and several other soldiers were taken to New Albany and secured in the county jail.(5) On July 13, Morgan's Indiana raid ended as he rode east out of Harrison on the Indiana-Ohio state border.(6)

Notes:

1. W. H. H. Terrell, Indiana in the War of the Rebellion: Report of the Adjutant General, Vol. 1 (Indianapolis, 1869), pp. 165, 170-73; Basil Duke, History of Morgan's Cavalry (Cincinnati, 1867), pp. 430-35. Indiana militia and home guards encountered Morgan or his officers, and their men, at Palmyra, Salem, Vernon, Versailles, and Osgood. Lester V. Horwitz, "Battles and Skirmishes of the Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio Raid (July 1863), " in The Longest Raid of the Civil War (Cincinnati, 2001), Appendix, 379. The course of Morgan's Raid in Indiana has been marked as the John Hunt Morgan Heritage Trail 1863. The "Battle of Corydon" on July 9, 1863 is the only federally recognized Civil War battle in Indiana. "Corydon, " "Civil War Sites Advisory Commission, " The American Battlefield Protection Program accessed 11/4/04.

2. New Albany Daily Ledger, July 13, 1863; Terrell, 169; Dee Alexander Brown, The Bold Cavaliers: Morgan's 2nd Kentucky Cavalry Raiders (Philadelphia, 1959), 201-3.

3. New Albany Daily Ledger, July 13, 1863; Brown, 202.

4. New Albany Daily Ledger, July 13, 1863. Brown, 202, quotes from a letter from Davis to Frances Cunningham, indicating that "‘While crossing a small creek near Pekin . . . we were attacked by the 73rd Indiana Volunteers and a detachment of 5th U. S. Regulars in ambuscade.'"

5. New Albany Daily Ledger, July 13, 1863; New Albany Daily Ledger, July 14, 1863; New Albany Daily Ledger, July 18, 1863; John Linza Gibson, Early Wood Township, Being a Story of Borden, Indiana, and its Environs for the First Hundred Years, as Gleaned from Memory, Hearsay and History (Pekin, Indiana, 1964).

6. Terrell, 193.