Existing comment:
Civil War
Action at "Ashland"
October 18, 1862
While Confederate armies were retreating from
Kentucky after the Battle of Perryville, Colonel John
Hunt Morgan operated behind the pursuing Union army.
With Colonel Basil W. Duke's Second Kentucky Cavalry
Regiment, Colonel Richard M. Gano's cavalry battalion
and Colonel William Campbell Preston Breckinridge's
cavalry battalion, along with a two-gun section of
artillery under Sergeant CC Corbett. Morgan rode
from Bryantsville through Lancaster to Gum Springs
and Richmond, then toward Lexington.
Scouts having reported that two battalions from the
Third and Fourth Ohio Cavalry regiments were camped
in a woodlot behind the Clay mansion near Lexington
and some were in town. Morgan divided his command,
Gano's and Breckinridge's battalions, with the
artillery, proceeded across the Kentucky River at
Clay's Ferry and approached "Ashland" by way of the
Richmond Road: Morgan, with Duke's Second Kentucky,
crossed the river below Clay's Ferry and then took
by-roads to the Tates Creek Pike and approached
"Ashland" from the south, while directing two
companies toward the town of Lexington to arrest
any movement of enemy cavalry there.
At dawn, October 18, 1862, Breckinridge's dismounted
troopers, attacked the Ohioans who were camped in
the woods ahead in this direction from the Richmond
Road at left, with Gano's battalion, mounted, forming
behind. Corbett's artillery opened fire in this direction
from within Breckinridge's ranks, at the same time.
Duke's Second Kentucky arrived here, dismounted to
the right, and opened fire upon the Ohioan's rear, the
Ohioans broke in confusion. Those not killed were
captured or scattered. Morgan's cousin, Major
George Washington Morgan, was mortally wounded
nearby. He died at "Hopemount" in Lexington.
Morgan's men captured two companies of the Fourth
Ohio Cavalry at the Phoenix Hotel and the courthouse
in town. Morgan paroled 290 captured Union
officers and men at the Clay Mansion, his command then
left Lexington that afternoon to return to Tennessee. |