AN UNRECORDED INCIDENT OF MORGAN'S RAID
BY WM. MARION MILLER
Many pages have been written concerning
the exploits of
the famous Confederate raider, General
John Morgan, and the
details of his famous expedition into
Ohio and his subsequent
capture have been ably discussed in this
journal.1 There exists,
however, a vast amount of oral
material--some of it legendary
and apocryphal in character, even to the
extent of bordering on
folklore. Now and then one finds a
document in family archives
that adds a bit to the story of the
raid; recently one of this type
was brought to the writer's attention.
This document is an account, written by
an eye-witness of
some of the events that were soon to
culminate in Morgan's cap-
ture.2 Its author was a Mr.
H. J. Boice, of Rock Springs, Wyo-
ming, who wrote of his experiences many
years after the events
themselves had transpired but when they
were still vivid in his
memory. The facts he states correspond
to other accounts verified
and accepted as trustworthy history, but
he does add something
hitherto unknown to historians of
Morgan's raid.
Mr. Boice was, at the time of this
expedition, a boy living
in Monroeville, Ohio, some two miles
south of Salineville. He
was then seventeen years old and had
recently been given a medi-
cal discharge from the 98th O. V. I.
Company. He tells of the
excitement of the villagers at Morgan's
approach to the town
and how many of them fled to the
"Timber" for safety. The
"Johnnies," to use his term,
arrived early on Sunday morning
and helped themselves liberally to
whatever they could find in
the way of food. After they had eaten
breakfast one of them,
apparently an officer, approached Mr.
Boice and asked him if he
had any word from Hammondsville, a town
to the southeast.
Boice replied that he had; then the
officer asked him if any Union
1 See Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly, VII, 48-59; XVIII, 79-
104, and XX, 368-77.
2 This document was loaned the writer by
Miss Patricia Shope, of East Liverpool,
Ohio. Miss Shope is a student at Miami
University and a great-niece of Mr. Boice.
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