Death of Gen. John Hunt Morgan

On September 3-4, 1864, Lt. Col. William H. Ingerton led the 13th Tennessee Cavalry (USA) to the outskirts of Greeneville, where he learned that Gen. John Hunt Morgan was at the Dickson-Williams Mansion. He ordered Capts. C.C. Wilcox and S.E. Northington to dash into town, surround the Williams residence, and bring Morgan out dead or alive. Federal cavalry surprised the Confederates, and while some escaped on horseback, many others were shot or captured. Known as the Thunderbolt of the Confederacy, Morgan fled the house seeking an escape route despite his officers' urging that he remain in the mansion and await reinforcements, saying that the Yankees would never take him prisoner again. Morgan and his staff officers ran to St. James Episcopal Church nearby and hid under the floor until Morgan heard Union soldiers enter the church. He then rushed out toward the grape arbors near the Williams stables and his horse, Sir Oliver. As Wilcox's troopers surrounded the area, Morgan tried to walk away in the confusion, but Union Pvt. Andrew J. Campbell ordered him to halt and, when Morgan did not obey, shot and killed him. Morgan's death was a blow to Confederate morale in East Tennessee and throughout the South. After local residents viewed his body at the Dickson-Williams Mansion, his remains were returned to his wife, Mattie Ready Morgan, in Abingdon, Virginia, where his funeral was the largest the town had ever seen. He was first interred in a stone tomb in Sinking Spring Cemetery, then moved by rail to Richmond for a Confederate state funeral in the Capitol and burial in Hollywood Cemetery. In April 1868, his remains were taken to Lexington, Kentucky, where more than 2,000 mourners attended his third and final funeral, after which veterans formed the Morgan's Men Association; he now rests in the Hunt-Morgan plot in Lexington Cemetery.

Greeneville, Tennessee · United States