Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1886-04-22
JOHN MoRGAN's DEATH.
The Great Rebel Raider said to Hav
Been BETRAYED

The Great Rebel Raider said to Have
Been Betrayed.
No less frequently than once year,
writes Greenville, Tenn, correspond
ent of The Louisville Courier-JournaI,
some crank in the north will revive the
long ago exploded story that John
Morgan still lives somewhere in Texas,
and while this story is being run down
another one is started that Gen. Nor
gan was killed while making his es-
cape from the Columbus penitentiary.
All these stories are received in Green
vile with smile, for there isn't an in
habitant here of mature years who
lived here during the war who hasn't
ocular proof that the great rebel raider
bit the dust on Sunday morning late
in the year 1864 in the door-yard of the
| old Williams mansion, not n thousand
yards from the East Tennessee depot,
in Greenville. Morgan had come to
Greenville leading possibly seven thous-
and men. They were all camped in
three or four different divisions in the
neighborhood of Greenvillo. Morgan,
with two or three members of his staff,
had been received as guest in the old
Williams mansion, then the finest and
most stately of any in Greene county.
There is tradition current in Green
vile that some one under the Williams
roof betrayed the presence of the guest
by sending word to Gen. Gillian, who
was then with his command at Bulls
Gap, now known as Rogersvile juno
ton, eighteen miles south of Greenville.
At any rate, between the arrival of Gen.
Morgan at the Williams home and the
arrival of Gen. Gillian there was just
time for a messenger to go to Bulls
Gap and for the union army to reach
Greenville by forced marching. Gillian
arrived just before daylight. In discus
sing the history to-day man who was
a surgeon in Morgan's command said:
''When the Yankees came up in tho
night it seemed for all the world to us
that there was million of 'em, and we
just got up and busted, and afterward
learned that their army was smaller than
ours"
Mr.. Tom A. Baker, a marble-dcaler
OF Morristown, Tenn, who lived in
Greenville when Morgan was killed,
told your correspondent to-day that on
the fatal Sunday morning. while it was
yet dark, he heard the firing, and, boy
like he hurried over to the Williams
home not two minutes after Morgan
fell. He said that the federals had
stolen up to the house and surrounded
it. when Morgan discovered their pres
ence, and without the ceremony of
dressing, but arrayed simply in shirt
and drawers, made dash for the street
and the stable opposite where his horse
was feeding. Through the darkness
the federal soldiers could see the some
thing in white fleeing, and dozen
shots were fired, one ball only hitting
him, and that one pierced his heart.
Said Mr.. Baker: II saw the dead man
moment after, and while the blood
yet flowed from the gaping wound.
II know when and where and how
John Morgan died. His body was after
ward thrown across mule and carried
up to Bristol, where it was buried and
where it rested until the war closed,
when Morgan's relatives moved it to
Kentucky. The story that indignities
or insults were offered the remains is
all bosh."
1t is related that old Rachel Foster,
who lived near Greenville, and who was
to the confederates what Molle Pitcher
was to the British, came trooping into
Greenville, mounted on q mule, an hour
after Morgan was dead, yelling like
savage and swearing in way that
would have made an apprenticed pirate
! envious: "Where is that
MorganP heard he's dead. Let me
see his corpse. I'll not believe We'll
not have to fight the id scoundrel any
more till look into his dead face"
The folks of Greenville knew Rachel
and made way for her to be satisfied.
She looked into the dead face, ceased
her blasphemy, remounted her mule
and disappeared.