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Group: Tammany Hall
Topic: Morgan's Raid

Morgan's Raid

Years: 1863 - 1863

Morgan's Raid is a diversionary incursion by Confederate cavalry into the northern U.S. states of Indiana and Ohio during the American Civil War.

The raid takes place from June 11–July 26, 1863, and is named for the commander of the Confederates, Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan.

Although it causes temporary alarm in the North, the raid will ultimately be classed as a failure.

The raid covers more than one thousand miles (sixteen hundred kilometers), beginning in Tennessee and ending in northern Ohio.

It coincides with the Vicksburg Campaign and the Gettysburg Campaign, and it is meant to draw U.S. troops away from these fronts by frightening the North into demanding their troops return home

Despite his initial successes, Morgan is thwarted in his attempts to recross the Ohio River and eventually is forced to surrender what remains of his command in northeastern Ohio near the Pennsylvania border.

Morgan and other senior officers are kept in the Ohio state penitentiary, but they tunnel their way out and take a train to Cincinnati, where they cross  the Ohio River to safety.

"History should be taught as the rise of civilization, and not as the history of this nation or that. It should be taught from the point of view of mankind as a whole, and not with undue emphasis on one's own country. Children should learn that every country has committed crimes and that most crimes were blunders. They should learn how mass hysteria can drive a whole nation into folly and into persecution of the few who are not swept away by the prevailing madness."

—Bertrand Russell, On Education (1926)