On the morning of July 26, 1863, Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan and several hundred Confederate raiders were attacked in the Salineville area by Union cavalry advancing from Monroeville under Major William B. Way. After the raiders were spotted at Riley Church about a mile northeast, a running fight followed. Captain Ralph Sheldon's troopers of Company C, 2nd Kentucky Cavalry, wheeled about and directed a withering fire into the Union pursuit, effectively breaking it up, but Lieutenant Smith W. Fisk, riding at the head of the Union forces, was shot from his horse near here, and several Confederates were wounded or captured. This was the last engagement in Morgan's Raid. The Confederates then split, with some riding north and the rest under Morgan heading west toward Carrollton before circling back east and rejoining the others west of Summitville. Using local guides, including citizens on their way to services at the Summitville Catholic Church, Morgan's troops resumed an easterly march near Bethesda Church in hopes of reaching the Ohio River and crossing to safety, even as time and circumstances were working against him. After the fighting at the Sharp farm, an African American youth identified variously as Boxer or Sam was found hiding on the property; he said he had accompanied Morgan as a menial worker, and the Sharp family employed him on their farm for several years before he was reportedly killed in Detroit, Michigan, after leaving Ohio.
