In fall 1861, the arrival of Federal troops in Lexington, Kentucky, prompted Lexington native John Hunt Morgan to assemble a band of 17 armed men on horseback to support the Southern cause. The Lexington Rifle then rode into south central Kentucky to join Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner's command, picking up 200 more recruits along the way. At Woodsonville, Morgan and his raw cavalry trained in drill and tactics. He made headquarters in the old Green River Baptist Church and on its steps was sworn into the Confederate army in October by Major William P. Johnston, son of General Albert Sidney Johnston. In December, Morgan and a picked company of 100 men rode north to Bacon Creek, now Bonnieville, and burned the L&N Railroad trestle. This first act against the railroad brought him to the attention of the press, and in the raids that followed his name began to take on the status of legend. Morgan's raiders also frequently tore up railroad track to prevent the Union from moving supplies and men, heating the rails and bending them into "Morgan's Neckties."