One of Morgan's Men: Memoirs of Lieutenant John M. Porter of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry

by John M. Porter, Kent Masterson Brown (Editor)

Overview

John Marion Porter (1839–1898) grew up working at his family's farm and dry goods store in Butler County, Kentucky. The oldest of Reverend Nathaniel Porter's nine children, he was studying to become a lawyer when the Civil War began. As the son of a family of slave owners, Porter identified with the Southern cause and wasted little time enlisting in the Confederate army. He and his lifelong friend Thomas Henry Hines served in the Ninth Kentucky Calvary under John Hunt Morgan, the "Thunderbolt of the Confederacy."

When the war ended, Porter and Hines opened a law practice together, but Porter was concerned that the story of his service during the Civil War and his family's history would be lost with the collapse of the Confederacy. In 1872, Porter began writing detailed memoirs of his experiences during the war years, including tales of scouting behind enemy lines, sabotaging a Union train, being captured and held as a prisoner of war, and searching for an army to join after his release.

Editor Kent Masterson Brown spent several years preparing Porter's memoir for publication, clarifying details and adding annotations to provide historical context. One of Morgan's Men: Memoirs of Lieutenant John M. Porter of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry is a fascinating firsthand account of the life of a remarkable Confederate soldier. In this unique volume, Porter's insights on Morgan and the Confederacy are available to readers for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813129891
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	02/25/2011
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kent Masterson Brown is the creator of the magazine The Civil War. He is the author or editor of several books, including Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander, Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign, and The Civil War in Kentucky: Battle for the Bluegrass State. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Note on the Editorial Method xvii

Introduction 1

Preface 9

1 To the Military I Submitted Myself 11

2 You Have Crowned Yourselves with Glory 23

3 It Was Literally a Leap in the Dark 39

4 We Struck Out on Our Own Responsibility 51

5 A Perfect Tornado of Shots Was Fired at Us 67

6 It Was a Grand and Imposing Ovation 77

7 The Whiskey Was Still Abundant 97

8 The Fame and Glory of Morgan's Command 111

9 This Was a Hard-Fought Field 129

10 Our March Was Cautious 141

11 The Scene Was Ludicrous and Pitiful 153

12 I Was Captured for the Last Time 165

13 The Days Dragged Slowly By 177

14 With Three Days' Rations, We Started Home 189

Memorandum 205

Notes 207

Bibliography 271

Index 279

Editorial Reviews

Brown's sound editing should be closely considered and replicated in future projects. The original Porter manuscript suffers from poor grammar and sentence structure, is missing a page, and requires certain gaps to be filled. Incidentally, Brown identifies and documents dozens of references, through what must have been tedious detective work, which is a testament to the book's nearly seventy pages of thorough endnotes. And by skillfully subdividing the memoir into fourteen chapters, each with its own natural flows and breaks, Brown undoubtedly has mad the piece infinitely more readable. Yet he succeeds admirably in allowing Porter's voice to command and direct the narrative. This latter point is crucial because Porter's writings serve as one of the few primary accounts from John Hunt Morgan's famous cavalry command. —Journal of the Civil War Era, Volume 2, Issue 4

Journal of the Civil War Era - Andrew F. Lang

Won the Basil W. Duke Award in 2011.

From the Publisher

Kentuckian Porter penned these memoirs in the 1870s, recalling his time riding with the cavalry in Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, and Ohio during the war and regarding the Confederate cause as just. Viewing his company of men as noble warriors, he describes reconnoitering and raids behind enemy lines, the camaraderie of the mounted troops, his capture and time as a prisoner of war in Ohio, his return home via North Carolina in the war's waning days, and his immediate assessment of the heroic struggle. His account reflects the Lost Cause glow of many other ex-Confederate memoirs, but it shines little new light on the cavalry, prison life, or other subjects. Readable but unremarkable in its content; recommended only for comprehensive and regional local history collections.

Library Journal