On 4 July 1862, John Hunt Morgan left Knoxville, Tennessee with 900 Confederate cavalrymen. For three weeks, Morgan's raiders rampaged through Kentucky, capturing and paroling 1,200 Union troops, seizing hundreds of horses, and destroying stockpiles of Federal supplies. The hugely successful raid caused President Abraham Lincoln to remark, "They are having a stampede in Kentucky", and compelled the Federal government to assign thousands of troops to garrison duty. On his return at the end of July, Morgan insisted to General Edmund Kirby Smith that an invasion of Kentucky would cause 25,000–30,000 men to enlist in the Confederate army. On 13 August, Kirby Smith's army began to move north, initiating the Confederate Heartland Offensive. On 30 August, Kirby Smith's troops obliterated two brigades of Union recruits at the Battle of Richmond. The Confederates went on to occupy Lexington, Kentucky and threaten Cincinnati. However, the hoped-for thousands of Kentucky recruits did not show up.