The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-04-09
JOHN DEATH.
The Great Rebel Raider Said TO Have
Been Betrayed.

NAN~A INAA w law
Been Betrayed.
No less frequently than once a year.
writes a G~reenville, Tenn, correspond
ent of The Louisville Courier-JoarnaE.
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 p~enitentiary.
All these stories are received in Green
vile with a 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 a Sunday morning late
in the year 1864 in the door-yard Of the
old Williams mansion, not a thousand
yards from the East Tennessee depot,
in G~reenville. 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 Greenville. Morgan,
with two or three members of his staff,
had been received as n guest in the old
Williams mansion, then the finest and
most stately of any in Greene county.
There is a tradition current in Green
vile that some n 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 Rogersville 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 60 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 a man who was
a surgeon in Morgan's command said:
when the Yankees came up in the
night it seemed for all the world to us
that there was a million of EN-, and we
just got up and busted, and afterward
learned that their army was smaller than
ours
Mr.. Tom A. Baker, a marble-dealer
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 haa
stolen up to the house and surrounded
it. when Morgan discovered their pres
ence, and without the ceremony o.
dressing, but arrayed simply in shirl
and drawers, made a dash for the slree'
and the stable opposite where his morse
was feeding. Through the darkness
the federal soldiers could see the some
thing in white fleeing, and a dozen
shots were fired, one ball only hitting
him, and that ono pierced his hear''
Said Nh. Baker: II saw the dead man
a moment after, and while the biood
yet flowed from the gaping wound.
II know when and where and no"
John Morgan died. His body was ai1er,
ward thrown across a mule and carrieu
up to Bristol, where it was buried AM
where it rested until the war closeu'
when Morgan's relatives moved y y
Kentucky. The story that indignities
or insults were offered the remain =
all bosh."
1t is related that old Rachel Foster'
who lived near Greenville, and who was
to the confederates what Mollie Pitcher
was to the British, came trooping in'o
Greenville, mounted on a mule, an hour
after Morgan was dead, yelling Ike :
savage and swearing in a way tnas
would have made an ~apprenticed pifa'o
e~nvious: Where is that
Morganp / heard he's dead. Let mc
see his corpse. I'll not believe we Z
not have to fight the did scoundrei any !,
more till / look into bis dead race
The folks Of Greenville knew kacnei
and made way for her to be satisneu,
She looked into the dead face ceassu
Der blasphemy, remounted hes mu''
and disappeared.