John Hunt Morgan's command of about 2,500 men left Bardstown and moved west after the raid had not gone as planned, with pitched battles at Green River Bridge and Lebanon and hours lost to Union resistance at Bardstown, but Morgan remained determined to take the war north. Unsure of his destination, Union officers at Shepherdsville prepared for a possible attack on the railroad bridge there after Major Israel N. Stiles of the 63rd Indiana Infantry received word that Morgan was on the Shepherdsville Road and ordered Captain D. Morris to gather his men from Bardstown Junction and Belmont and bring them to Shepherdsville. Morgan's advance reached Bardstown Junction just as Morris was leaving, and the Confederates chased the Union soldiers, capturing two while the rest escaped. The other half of Morris's company, led by Lieutenant W.F. Henderson, caught the northbound train at Belmont for Shepherdsville, but at Bardstown Junction George A. "Lightning" Ellsworth, Morgan's telegraph operator, had James Forker send false word to Louisville that the train had already passed, buying Morgan time. The Confederates then burned the trestle over Long Lick Creek, the water tank-house, and the stockade at Bardstown Junction before capturing the train with Henderson and his small command aboard. Those soldiers were paroled and robbed, as were the other passengers, and the contents of the train's safe were taken before the train was sent back to Elizabethtown. Morgan's men then continued west toward Brandenburg and the Ohio River.