JOHN HUNT MORGAN AUTOGRAPH ALBUM, OHIO PENITENTIARY, 1863 — SIGNED BY GEN. JOHN HUNT MORGAN AND SEVENTY-ONE CAPTURED OFFICERS OF HIS COMMAND, INCLUDING ALL SEVEN MEN OF THE NOVEMBER 1863 ESCAPE PARTY

JOHN HUNT MORGAN AUTOGRAPH ALBUM, OHIO PENITENTIARY, 1863 — SIGNED BY GEN. JOHN HUNT MORGAN AND SEVENTY-ONE CAPTURED OFFICERS OF HIS COMMAND, INCLUDING ALL SEVEN MEN OF THE NOVEMBER 1863 ESCAPE PARTY

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$10,500.00 ON HOLD

Quantity Available: 1

Item Code: 205-189

THE ALBUM

A commercially published gift album, "Keepsake Album," Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., in its original brown pebble-grain morocco over boards. The covers are blocked in gilt with a broad Greek key border enclosing foliate corner ornaments and the word "Album" in an ornamented blackletter at center, with gilt rules to the board edges. The chromolithographed title leaf, printed in red and gold within a floral wreath, is present. Approximately 6 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches.

 

THE SIGNATURES

Seventy-two autographs in period brown ink, the great majority one to a page. Nearly every signer has written out his name, rank, company and regiment, "Morgan's Division, C.S.A.," and his home town, so that the album amounts to a roster of the officer corps that rode with Morgan into Indiana and Ohio in July of 1863.

The album opens with "W. G. Owen, Maj. 10th Ky. Cav., Morgans Division, C S Army." Morgan's own page is signed in his hand, "Jno. H. Morgan, Brig. Genl., C S Army," with "Lexington, Ky." written below.

 

CAPTURE AND CONFINEMENT

Morgan surrendered the remnant of his command near Salineville, Ohio, on July 26, 1863, at the close of the Great Raid. His enlisted men went to Camp Douglas; Morgan, Col. Basil W. Duke and some sixty-eight of his officers were sent by order of Halleck to the Ohio Penitentiary at Columbus, where they arrived at the end of July and were confined as felons, their heads shaved, held in their cells from five in the evening until seven in the morning and cut off from newspapers and visitors. It was in those months of close confinement that this album passed from cell to cell and was filled.

 

THE ESCAPE PARTY — ALL SEVEN PRESENT

On the night of November 27, 1863, Morgan and six of his captains went down through the cell floors into the air chamber beneath the east wing, along a tunnel begun on November 4 and dug with table knives, and over the outer wall on a rope of bed ticking. By Capt. Thomas H. Hines's own published account, the party consisted of Hines, Capt. J. C. Bennett, Capt. L. D. Hockersmith, Capt. C. S. Magee, Capt. Ralph Sheldon and Capt. Samuel B. Taylor, together with the General. Every one of the seven signed this album:

- Jno. H. Morgan, Brig. Gen., C S Army, Lexington, Ky.

- T. Henry Hines, Capt., Co. E, 9th Ky. Cavalry, Bowling Green, Ky.

- Samuel B. Taylor, Capt., Co. E, 10th Ky. Cavalry, St. Mathews P.O., Ky.

- L. D. Hockersmith, Capt., Co. C, 10th Ky. Cavalry, Louisville, Ky.

- G. S. Magee, Capt., Co. G, Chenault's Regiment, Cynthiana, Harrison Co., Ky.

- R. Sheldon, Capt., Co. C, 2nd Ky. Cavalry, Bardstown, Ky.

- J. C. Bennett, Capt., Co. A, 10th Ky. Cavalry, Calhoun, Ky.

Morgan and Hines took the night train to Cincinnati, crossed the Ohio, and reached Confederate lines in Georgia a month later. Sheldon and Taylor were retaken at Louisville within days; Bennett, Hockersmith and Magee got away.

 

NOVEMBER 19, 1863

One page is dated by the signer: "Nov. 19th 1863 — M. B. Perkins, Capt., Co. C, Sixth Ky. Cavalry, Morgan's Division, C.S.A., Somerset, Kentucky." Perkins wrote his name in a Columbus cell on the same day that Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, and one week before Morgan and his six companions went out through the floor.

 

OTHER NOTABLE SIGNERS

- Basil W. Duke, Col. of Cavalry, C.S.A., Morgan's Division — Morgan's brother-in-law, successor in command, and the historian of the command.

- R. C. Morgan, Col., C.S.A., Lexington, Ky. — Richard C. Morgan, the General's brother, who on the night of the escape exchanged cells with him so that the count would not betray the break.

- C. H. Morgan, A.D.C., Genl. Morgan's staff; C. C. Morgan, Mounted Riflemen; and Thos. S. Morgan, Capt. & A.C.S. — three more of the General's kinsmen.

- J. B. McCreary, Major, Chenault's Regiment, Richmond, Ky. — twice Governor of Kentucky and United States Senator.

- Thos. W. Bullitt, 2nd Lieut., Co. C, 2nd Ky. Cavalry, St. Matthews P.O. near Louisville — long credited with a hand in the digging.

- Hart Gibson, Capt. & A.A.G., Morgan's Cavalry Division, Woodford Co., Ky.; Cicero Coleman, Lt. Col., Cluke's Cavalry; W. W. Ward, Col., Tennessee Cavalry; and Wash C. Shane, A.D.C., 2nd Brigade, writing from Breckinridge, Dallas Co., Texas.

Several entries carry the word "Deserter" written sidewise across the page in a period hand — among them J. N. Taylor, T. M. Coombs, Jos. H. Croxton and Theo. B. Boyd, and, of W. R. Cunningham, "Deserter & betrayer of his friends." The album was plainly kept and annotated by one of the prisoners, and the verdicts are theirs.

 

CONDITION

Binding rubbed overall, with wear at the extremities, chipping and small losses to the leather along the board edges and at the spine ends, and bumped corners; the gilt remains bright and the boards are firm. Leaves clean and strong, with scattered foxing and light spotting; the Perkins leaf shows a few small stains.

 

ACCOMPANYING MATERIAL

The album is accompanied by an old paper wrapper inscribed in ink "Autograph Book — Morgan's Men — War Between the States," and by a research file: a typed page-by-page inventory identifying all seventy-two signers by rank, company, regiment and residence, together with printed service records for individual officers.

 

Wartime autographs of John Hunt Morgan are scarce in any form. An album filled in the Ohio Penitentiary by Morgan and seventy-one of his officers — the full escape party among them, and one page dated a week before the break — is an object of a different order, and we know of no comparable example offered in recent memory.

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