About dusk on July 10, 1863, Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan and his men rode into Lexington, then the county seat of Scott County, after traveling approximately 45 miles since camping the previous night in the Palmyra area. Lexington was occupied without opposition because the county's three Home Guard companies had been ordered to Jeffersonville to protect the U.S. Government warehouses. Morgan and his staff spent the night in the Faris Hotel facing the courthouse square, while a few of his men camped on the courthouse grounds and most of the 2,000-man division camped northeast of town. Before leaving Lexington at 11 a.m. on July 11, the raiders looted the town's three general stores of men's clothing and shoes, robbed the Post Office of all cash and stamps, and plundered dwellings. Ironically, on July 11, Union General Edward H. Hobson spent the night in the Faris Hotel, the same place Confederate General Morgan had occupied the night before.