In late June 1863, as Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan prepared for the Great Raid into Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, his scouts and parts of his nine regiments moved into Cumberland County. The 1st Brigade, with 1,450 cavalrymen under Col. Basil Duke, crossed the Cumberland River at Neeley's Ferry and at Burkesville, Scott's Ferry, Amandaville, and Bakerton, while Col. Adam R. Johnson commanded the 2nd Brigade of 1,000 men, which mostly crossed at McMillan's Ferry, Salt Lick Bend, and other points west of here. Heavy rains had swollen the river beyond its banks, making it more than one-half mile wide in some places, and Duke's men needed most of two days to get across. Curtis Burke of Quirk's Scouts recalled at Neeley's Ferry that the horses had to swim, were taken upstream to avoid being swept below the landing, then unsaddled and driven into the water in groups until they crossed, where men in canoes waited on the far side to catch them. Cumberland River ferries operated through the first half of the 20th century, and now only McMillan's Ferry at Turkey Neck Bend in Monroe County remains in operation.