John Hunt Morgan’s Great Raid into Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio began in Cumberland County, Kentucky, and lasted 25 days over a thousand miles, making it the longest Confederate raid of the Civil War. Morgan commanded 2,460 cavalrymen in two brigades, with the first led by his brother-in-law, Col. Basil W. Duke, and most of Duke’s brigade crossed here on boats constructed on site while their horses were forced to swim the Cumberland River. Pvt. John Weathered of the 9th Tennessee Cavalry, CSA, reported that about one hundred cavalrymen crossed at a time, placing their saddles and blankets on an old flatboat and claiming their horses on the other side. The rest of Morgan’s nine regiments and the commissary train crossed at various fords up and down the river, leading Union newspapers to report that he had 10,000 men, though the area was only lightly defended. Commanding Gen. Henry M. Judah believed Morgan would be unable to cross the rain-swollen river and ordered Gen. Edward H. Hobson to remain encamped at Marrowbone 10 miles to the west, while to the east Col. Frank Wolford’s regiments patrolled many river crossings, leaving only a few of his men here. P.H. Burns of the 22nd Indiana Battery recalled a little skirmishing in the ravines as Morgan came over, but said that “the old fox slipped around us, and then began the race.” On the morning of July 2, Morgan’s men waited on the Courthouse Square in Burkesville for provisions, which had to be ferried across by offloading and disassembling wagons, rafting wagons and cargo over the river, and then reassembling and reloading them. Tired of waiting for rations, the men rode north toward Columbia and foraged for food at farmhouses along the way. Before the Civil War, Burkesville Ferry had been a busy steamship landing where manufactured products from Nashville moved upriver and timber, poultry, and farm products were floated downriver.