After thirty-eight days of raiding for supplies, damaging bridges and rail lines, and drawing the pursuit of Union troops, Morgan's men arrived at Buffington Island on the evening of July 18, 1863, hoping to cross the Ohio River at the ford into West Virginia. Dense fog and darkness fell, and Morgan's scouts reported that an undetermined force hidden in trenches blocked the crossing. Unwilling to attempt a night crossing or leave his wounded behind, Morgan camped and planned to confront the force at dawn before moving onto friendlier soil, not realizing that Union forces were closing in from all directions. The next morning the Battle of Buffington Island began, the only Civil War battle in Ohio and the most significant battle fought north of the Ohio River, as three thousand Union artillery, infantry, and cavalry, accompanied by U.S. Navy gunboats, caught up with Morgan's one thousand eight hundred Confederate troops. In 1863, after the war had become a long struggle between the states, and on the heels of Gettysburg and the surrender at Vicksburg, Morgan had brought the war into Ohio, crossing from Indiana into southwestern Ohio on July 13 with more than two thousand veteran raiders in order to divert Union troops from their normal duties and strike fear in the civilian population.