One of Morgan's Men. John M. Porter
the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry and came back to Kentucky from Georgia with him in 1865. Edward Ludlow Hines was a cousin of Thomas Henry Hines. Cora's grandfather was named in honor of none other than Lieutenant John Marion Porter. The Spillers are terrific people who love history. I am very grateful for all they did to make the publication of Porter's war memoirs possible and for their great friendship.
My secretary, Sharon Howard of Georgetown, Kentucky, patiently typed draft after draft of the war reminiscences; she was always cheerful and interested in the story. David Hicks of Lexington, Kentucky, my law clerk, helped me prepare all the maps. He is computer savvy; I, of course, am not. The result of David's efforts are the wonderful maps that chronicle Porter's incredible odyssey. Thank you, Sharon and David.
My two good friends James Ramage, professor of history at Northern Kentucky University, and Edward McKenzie “Mac” Coffman, professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin, and now of Lexington, Kentucky, were most helpful. Jim read—and made critical comments about—the typescript of Porter's war reminiscences, giving me a road- map to edit it. Mac provided me with his master's thesis on the life of Thomas Henry Hines, and then helped me crystallize my thoughts about the project during our Sunday afternoon discussions after church and during our regular lunches. Jim and Mac are terrific historians; more than that, they are great people who dearly love history. I am very grateful to them.
Michael Courtney at Black Swan Bookstore in Lexington was very helpful, locating for me long out-of-print books that provided important narratives which helped bring Porter's story to life. Michael is a longtime friend; our friendship spans at least fifty years.
William Marshall, Jim Birchfield, and, especially genealogical specialist Phyllis V. Spiker, all at the University of Kentucky Special Collections, were more valuable than words can tell. Phyllis is a treasure; she patiently explored computer databases with me, finding, in the end, the identities of literally every person mentioned by Porter in his war reminiscences. That was quite a feat. I cannot say enough about Phyllis Spiker. For permission to use the photographs from the Hunt Morgan and Lafayette Studio Collections at the University of Kentucky Special Collections, I am most appreciative.
B. J. Gooch of the Transylvania University Library was very helpful. She opened up J. Winston Coleman Jr.'s photographic collection to me, and then patiently converted those photographs to digital form for me twice! I am very grateful. I must say, it was wonderful going through Coleman's collection. I remember viewing so much of it as a lad. Winston Coleman was a great friend. He would frequently call me up, and I would ride my bicycle to his house and spend the day with him looking at his vast collections and just “talking history.” It was such great fun. I am proud that some of his magnificent photographs adorn this book. I will never forget Winston Coleman.
I also want to thank the Filson Historical Society, the Kentucky Historical Society, the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Alabama Department of Archives and History for permission to use the wonderful illustrations from their collections.
My good friend and college classmate Dr. Dan Rush, of Kingsport, Tennessee—formerly from Fern Creek, Kentucky—traveled with me on tours of Morgan's great raids, along with his brother, Dr. Neil Rush of Cynthiana. Dan provided me with the transcript of The Vidette, a newspaper printed by Morgan's command in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, on October 28, 1862, recounting the action at “Ashland.” Save for Basil W. Duke's recounting of the action in his History of Morgan's Cavalry, it is to my knowledge the only Confederate version of the brief encounter ever printed. Dan also provided me with valuable information about Major George Washington Morgan, who was mortally wounded at “Ashland.” My longtime friend Bill Penn of Cynthiana provided a wonderful stream of material on the Battle of Cynthiana. Even more remarkable than those materials, he located a copy of the Louisville Daily Journal of July 26, 1862, that included a memoir of Morgan's command entering Midway, Kentucky. It must be the only such memoir in existence. Thank you, Dan and Bill.
I also want to thank Laura Sutton and Stephen Wrinn at the University Press of Kentucky for their faith in this project and their tireless efforts in its realization. Their efforts made a critical difference.
Finally, my dear wife, Genevieve, proofread the manuscript time and time again, making needed suggestions. Moreover, her patience and the patience of my three little ones—Annie, Philip, and Thomas—was wonderful. All of you are my greatest blessings.
NOTE ON THE
EDITORIAL METHOD
The original typescript of Porter's war memoirs must have been prepared in the late nineteenth century; it was a literal transcription. A retyping of the original typescript was accomplished in 1927. It was this second typescript that was given to me to publish. It contained some errors that were quickly determined to be typists' mistakes. Most of those were misspellings of words that included extra letters or excluded letters, clearly indicating keystroke errors. Once those typographical errors were corrected, the manuscript still had some problems: there were errors of grammar; some sentences ran for nearly a page or more in length and were very complicated; there were run-on sentences, and some sentences were incomplete; there were numerous paragraphs that had multiple subjects and literally ran on for two or three pages; there was one missing page and another noticeable gap in the narrative for which substitutes and missing fragments were never found; and some individuals were improperly identified or their names were misspelled. Most individuals were identified by Porter only by their surnames, and there were many of them in the manuscript. It seemed as though Porter believed his descendants would know who all those individuals were. To anyone other than those who actually knew the people in the area where Porter lived and with whom he campaigned, the use of only surnames made the manuscript very difficult to read, understand, or even appreciate.
I could not edit the manuscript so much that Porter's wonderful means of expression would be lost. I had to make sure Porter told his own story as he wanted to tell it. The University Press of Kentucky and I called upon Professor James Ramage of Northern Kentucky University, John Hunt Morgan's biographer and a historian who was familiar with the Porter typescript, to provide guidelines for the editing of the manuscript. He graciously provided detailed written recommendations.
Following Ramage’s recommendations, I corrected all the misspellings and glaring errors in grammar. That included inserting, where necessary, commas, semicolons, and even periods. It also included the occasional inserting or changing of words to correct the grammar, such as adjusting the verb tense, inserting omitted articles and prepositions, and the like. I separated sentences that were too long and complicated, and disconnected overly lengthy paragraphs. I recrafted the last paragraph of the page before the one missing page and the first paragraph of the page following it, so the story would properly flow, and added two sentences to fill the gap of the second break in the narrative. It was not difficult, as the narratives on the pages before and after the missing page and before and after the second gap were very clear.
I then identified all the individuals mentioned by Porter by locating all of them in the census records of 1850, 1860, and even 1870 when necessary, as well as in the Porter and Hines family histories or in the extant military records, to make sure they were the persons actually referred to by Porter. All individuals mentioned were given their full names and, where appropriate, their correct military ranks held at the times referenced by Porter. I also spelled out abbreviations of titles, regimental numbers, and dates. I also added words to complete some sentences. In those cases, the context of the narrative made the completion of those sentences simple. There were some sentences I rephrased in order to make the meaning more understandable. I also corrected the spelling of names of persons and places where it was necessary.
I broke the manuscript down into fourteen chapters and then annotated it with endnotes so that the reader would be able to fully understand who the individuals Porter mentions were, what roads (keyed to present-day highways and roads) Porter was traveling, and the context in which the events Porter narrates must be placed. At the beginning of each chapter, I wrote an introduction that appears in italics in order that the reader might understand the context of each episode of Porter's narrative. Hopefully, these edited memoirs retain much of Porter's