The Carter Journals

by Shane Phipps

  General John Hunt Morgan (1825–1864) began his military career in the Mexican War and enlisted in the Confederate Army on October 27, 1861. Beginning in July 1863, Morgan led a band of Confederate soldiers on a raid through southern Indiana and Ohio. (Civil War Materials, DC008, Indiana Historical Society)

  Many of the young men assembled began to press forward to volunteer, but Cody hesitated. Would Andrew have volunteered?

  “You going to sign up, Andy?” asked George Jenkins as he got into the line.

  “Maybe,” Cody replied. He remembered how upset Nancy Carter had been when speaking to Andrew about the war. “My mother would be devastated if I signed up to be in the militia. Ever since my pa was killed, her worst fear is to see me in uniform.”

  “You’re old enough to make your own decision, Andy,” George replied. “Do you really think your ma would want you to turn your back on this fight? These Rebels are liable to destroy this town. We have to be ready to stop them.”

  There was a long pause. George stood waiting for a reply. Cody looked down at the ground, deep in thought. He remembered Nancy’s words: the only things worth fighting for were God and family. Wouldn’t an attack on his community be an attack on family? Cody thought Andrew would believe so. He slowly stood up straight and looked George in the eyes, repeating Nancy Carter’s words.

  “My mother told me there were only two things she could see that were worth fighting for—God and family. If the Rebels try to march through our town and terrorize us, that’s close enough for me. I’m going to sign up.”

  Once he had completed the enlistment process, Cody headed back for the Carter house. He wondered what he would tell Nancy and how she would react. When he got inside the house, though, he didn’t have to say a word.

  “You signed up for the Home Guard, didn’t you?” Nancy asked.

  “How did you know?” Cody answered.

  “I am neither deaf nor blind. I see and hear things,” she replied. “I saw Lewis Jordan ride into town about an hour ago. I knew why he was here.”

  “Are you disappointed in me for signing up?” Cody asked.

  “Heavens no, dear,” replied Nancy. “I’m proud of you. I’m disappointed that there is a need for you to sign up, but protecting your friends and family is as honorable a reason for fighting as I can think of. I just pray to God that you don’t have to fire a shot and that you will be safe.”

  Cody thought of how his own mother might react if he had enlisted in the military during wartime. He wrapped his arms around Nancy and gave her a tender hug. “I will be careful. I promise you that,” he said.

  Soon the men who had signed up to join the local militia met for training. They were put through their paces and drills. It was hot, and the drilling was hard, tedious work. They learned basic marching, starting over each time anyone of them would make a misstep. It all seemed a bit pointless to Cody, but they spent hours learning it until they became somewhat competent.

  A more enjoyable aspect of the training, for Cody, was rifle drill time. Most of the men had plenty of experience shooting rifles, having spent plenty of time hunting from the time they were young boys. Military rifle training was a different matter altogether from hunting, however. First was the bayonet drilling. Cody had read about bayonets in books, but he had never seen them used in real life. The men had to learn how to affix the weapon to the end of their rifles. Then they practiced close combat by charging at large dummies hanging from post frames. They were instructed to jab the bayonet quickly into the dummy’s midsection, then give an upward, twisting thrust before withdrawing the weapon. They practiced this over and over.

  Shooting drills also were not what Cody expected. Most of the men could hit the targets easily and seemed impressed with themselves, but they quickly learned that hitting the target was only a small part of shooting in the military. They were drilled to shoot and then to reload as quickly as possible. They were told that a good soldier must be able to get off at least three shots in the space of a minute. This proved to be most difficult for the men to do, especially with drill sergeants screaming orders into their ears and firing their revolvers into the air to create an atmosphere of stress and tension. Eventually, most of the men became more proficient at reloading, although they remained far from the level of skill the drill sergeants expected.

  Before long there were more than four hundred new volunteers under the command of Colonel Jordan. They were more a rag-tag assembly of farmers who could shoot than a well-oiled military machine. Cody was pleased with his own progress, though he remained anxious. What lay ahead for him, and Andrew? No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than his head began to swim, and he found himself back in his bedroom.

  Cody’s anxiety sent him immediately to his computer. Had Colonel Jordan been right about the threat to Corydon? Cody learned that an attack from General Morgan had been imminent, indeed. By July 8, Morgan’s 1,800 men had reached the Ohio River. Although Morgan had been under orders from his superiors not to cross the Ohio River, he seemed bent on doing it all the same. His goal of hitting the North where they lived was important to him. With all the fighting taking place on Southern soil, Morgan felt that it was his personal project to bring a taste of the terror of war to the people of the North. Indiana braced itself for a bitter spoonful of that medicine.

  This map shows the route taken by General John Hunt Morgan’s raiders. Traveling through Tennessee and Kentucky, they entered the southeastern part of Indiana, looting towns, taking weapons, and burning bridges. They pillaged several towns along the way in Indiana and Ohio. (Civil War Materials, DC008, Indiana Historical Society)

  Morgan’s men seized two steamboats on the Ohio River, the John B. McCombs and the Alice Dean. He used these boats to transport his men across the river—the imaginary Mason-Dixon Line. The Confederate army set foot on Northern soil just east of the little town of Mauckport, Indiana. A small company of Indiana Home Guard was waiting there to attempt to turn the raiders back, but it was a woefully futile effort. Not only did Morgan’s men chase off the Indiana guard, they confiscated a large part of their weapons in the process.

  Once Morgan’s men were on Indiana soil, they burned the Alice Dean and sent the John B. McCombs downriver. Morgan’s men then marched north, away from the river—and toward Corydon and Andrew Carter.

  Chapter 19

  What he had just learned made Cody nervous as he looked at the journal of Andrew Carter lying on the desk in front of him. Was he about to be a part of a Civil War battle? He couldn’t recall learning about any fighting in Indiana. Maybe this ends without a battle, he thought hopefully. At any rate, he had come too far to turn back now. He quickly found the next entry and began to read….

  July 9, 1863—An attack on Corydon is looking more and more certain. General Morgan’s army advanced past the Home Guard stationed along their river-crossing route yesterday with no real difficulty. Word came to us that he is headed north, straight toward our position. We have been hard at work felling trees. We are using the logs to set up barricades about a mile south of town. We hope to use these as protection as we attempt to turn back the Rebels.…

  As he read these words, Cody once again felt the sensations of being sent back into the past. When he opened his eyes, he found himself crouched behind a small pile of logs. At his side were George Jenkins and four other men whom he did not recognize. He looked around and saw many other such piles of logs with other groups of men huddled behind them. A militia captain was walking from log pile to log pile shouting orders and encouragement. He was heading toward Cody’s group.

  “Steady, men,” the captain said. “Our scouts tell us that Morgan’s men are less than a half mile away. Remember: work together, save your shots, and make each one count. We will be outnumbered. Don’t forget our goal. We don’t need to defeat Morgan; we just need to frustrate him and make him change his path. We are here to protect Corydon.”

  If the captain’s words were meant to reassure, they fell
short of the mark as far as Cody was concerned. He was in a near panic. There was an army of nearly two thousand experienced soldiers just a couple thousand feet down the road and coming right at them. This is madness, Cody thought.

  “Let’s try to work together and coordinate our efforts,” Cody heard George say. “We need to take turns shooting so that while we reload, we will have each other to provide cover fire. If we all fire at the same time, it will be too easy for Rebs to charge us while we are reloading.”

  Cody was impressed with George. He seemed to be a level-headed, reasonable young man. He had appreciated what George had to say in the debate with Jim Watson, and he was equally impressed with the apparent calm under pressure George was displaying now. It was sound advice, but Cody wondered just how well it would be carried out if the bullets started flying.

  Cody didn’t have to wonder long. Within a few short minutes, a shot rang out from a log barricade up near the front. Soon shots were coming from everywhere. One of the men Cody didn’t know stood up to look over the log pile. He yelled something about Rebs and fired his rifle wildly in the direction of the oncoming soldiers. So much for remaining calm under fire, Cody thought.

  Cody’s senses soon were overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, and smells of real battle. Though he had learned a lot in school about historic battles, nothing could have prepared him for this experience. It was becoming difficult to see as the air grew thick with grayish-white smoke. Even worse, it was becoming hard to breathe. A dense smell of burning gunpowder hung everywhere, choking the young Hoosiers who were completely new to warfare. Cody’s sense of hearing was also hard-hit. The nearly constant explosions of gunfire left a nerve-racking pounding in Cody’s ears. Every few seconds, he could hear strange whistling and whirring sounds flying above him. He couldn’t figure out what those sounds were at first. Then it dawned on him with horrific clarity—they were bullets flying over his head, some of them just over his head! The bullets made other frightening noises, as well. Sometimes they made a dull thud accompanied by a small explosion of dirt and dust as they pounded into the earth. Other times, they made a loud crack as they slammed into one of the protective logs behind which the Home Guard crouched, or there would be an echoing piinngg sound when a bullet glanced off a rock.

  All these sounds rose in a cacophony of horror, yet there was a still more disturbing sound—one Cody knew he would never forget. It was the occasional sound of bullets slamming into flesh and bone and the accompanying screams of men in unimaginable pain and agony. Each time Cody heard it, he wanted to crawl under the log pile and curl up and hide.

  The group of men with Cody did their best to work together, and none of them had been hit yet. Cody had fired his rifle twice, but he couldn’t really see well enough to know if he had hit his target, or even come close. The battle seemed to last forever, but Cody had no idea how much time had really passed.

  On July 14, 1863, the front page of the Corydon Weekly Democrat reported the news of Morgan’s Raid into Indiana and the Battle of Corydon, where the Home Guard fought the raiders until Colonel Lewis Jordan raised the white flag of surrender. The casualties sustained were reported at four killed and two wounded for the Corydon Home Guard, while the Confederates sustained ten fatalities and forty wounded. (Corydon (Indiana) Weekly Democrat, July 14, 1863, courtesy of Indiana Historical Society)

  Cody saw some of the Home Guard troops start to flee back towards Corydon. Things seemed very bad. Before long, the order to surrender came down the line. The announcement was bittersweet for Cody. He felt defeated and demoralized, but the relative peace and quiet brought by the end of the fighting was more than welcome.

  The Home Guard forces were gathered up, and their weapons were confiscated. Cody was very nervous.

  “What will become of us?” Cody sheepishly asked George, who was standing in line next to him.

  “I don’t rightly know,” George replied. “I reckon we’re prisoners of war now. They’ll probably either send us south to some prison, or maybe, if we’re lucky, they’ll ransom us and free us.”

  Cody wasn’t sure exactly what George had meant, but he was relieved, at least, that he hadn’t mentioned anything about a firing squad. After all the uninjured Home Guard were lined up and counted, they were ordered to march toward Corydon.

  The march was short. Once in Corydon, the men were rounded up and kept in the yard of the courthouse. Cody watched in horror as the county commissioner walked outside the building with a rifle in his hand, a terrible mistake. A shot came from somewhere in the Rebel ranks, and the commissioner clutched at his chest. He attempted to speak, but only a pitiful gurgling noise came out as he fell to the ground and died.

  The Home Guard prisoners seemed to be in shock, but Morgan’s men were ready to make merry. The Rebel soldiers helped themselves to anything they wanted in the shops. They ransacked the town and stole money and any goods that struck their fancy. They even threatened to burn down the courthouse if they weren’t given $1,000 from the county coffers. Cody was getting a better understanding of what George had meant by ransom.

  To the Home Guard’s great relief, Morgan paroled all of the prisoners. The Rebels had gotten their ransom at the expense of the town of Corydon. All the men had to do to earn their freedom was to promise not to take up arms against the South again, which, of course, all the men did, whether they meant it or not.

  In the aftermath of the Battle of Corydon, Colonel Jordan gathered his remaining beaten-down troops and tried to encourage them.

  “Keep your chins up, boys,” the colonel said. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. You fought fiercely and admirably. We knew going in that it would be a nearly insurmountable challenge. We did all we could to throw those Rebs off course, and we gave them all they could handle. In fact, men, if war was strictly a numbers game, you would have made a fine showing. Reports are that Morgan lost eleven soldiers, and forty more were wounded. They may be leaving us claiming a victory, but they’re licking a lot of wounds. They know they have been in a scrap, that’s for sure! We’ll be better prepared for them if we ever have to face them again.”

  As the colonel’s speech ended, everything started to go black as Cody’s head started to swim. When he opened his eyes, he was back in his bedroom.

  Cody had to know what happened next. He turned back to his computer and learned that after leaving Corydon, Morgan’s Raiders had continued their march, heading northeast toward the Indiana towns of Vienna, Lexington, Vernon, Dupont, New Pekin, Salem, and Versailles, en route to their ultimate destination of Ohio. News about the attack on Corydon had spread quickly across the state. Since Corydon had been the original capital of Indiana, Hoosiers had felt this attack deeply. Governor Morton had called for help to track down General Morgan’s Raiders and avenge Corydon. The battle led to a huge upswing in the number of Hoosiers who joined in service of the Union. Cody also learned that Morgan’s Raiders were later overtaken and captured in Ohio.

  This 1863 illustration shows Morgan’s Raiders ransacking the town of Salem, Indiana, after the Battle of Corydon. (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, August 8, 1863; P 0455, Indiana Historical Society)

  Cody reluctantly closed the journal’s cover. “I did it!” he exclaimed. “I made it through all the journals.”

  Andrew Carter’s journal had been tough for Cody. He knew he would never forget the horrible sights, smells, and especially the sounds of battle. He had learned enough about war to know that he never wanted to see it again. He had a new appreciation for what soldiers went through to defend American freedom, and he hoped he would not take that for granted anymore.

  As Cody sat, he reflected on all his experiences in the Carter journals. What a wild ride he had been on! He had killed his first buck, heard stories of meeting Blackbeard, and been through the emotional wringer of family tragedy in the Tuscarora Wars. He had made maple syrup with Daniel and Rebecca Boone, then hunted and traveled through the Blue Ridge Mountains with Daniel. He had witness
ed treaty councils with Native Americans and experienced attacks on the mountain frontier. He had lived in a state that no longer existed. He found himself choking back emotion as he recalled losing his friend, Sitting Fox, at the Battle of Tippecanoe, and he felt pride in helping Gabriel, the runaway slave at Metamora. Then, to top it all off, he had just experienced the Battle of Corydon!

  It was hard for Cody to wrap his mind around all of that, but then he was pestered by a thought. Everything he had experienced in the journal seemed like epic adventure. Now it was his turn to begin keeping a journal of his own.

  “What in the world will I write about?” Cody said out loud. “Nothing exciting like this ever happens to me.”

  The thought began to eat away at him. Then he remembered he was heading to Tennessee on Monday. Maybe Grandpa will have some ideas about this, he thought.

  Chapter 20

  Conclusion

  Monday morning came early. Cody was still groggy as his family loaded up the car and headed for his grandfather’s farm in Tennessee. The six-and-a-half-hour drive that lay ahead of them always seemed long to Cody. He was able to sleep for the first couple of hours, waking up as the family entered Kentucky. There was always something about crossing the Ohio River that got Cody excited. He loved looking out over the beautiful landscape of Kentucky as they headed south. The rolling hills began to turn to low wooded ridges as they got closer to Tennessee. By the time they left Interstate 75 and headed southeast on Highway 25E, the hills turned into mountains. They rolled on through the little town of Pineville, which was positioned in a valley below towering wooded ridges. They were in Daniel Boone country now, Cody realized. Soon they would reach the town of Middlesboro and enter the Cumberland Gap tunnel.