Morgans report and comments were probably the impetus for this directive sent to Witcher...
The Brigadier-general commanding directs that you will send a scout far down as Prestonsburg, in Kentucky, with instructions to keep you constantly advised of movements of the enemy from that quarter. If any opportunity arises for a movement toward Northeastern Virginia, he promises you the advance."
Henry C. Magruder, he was born 1843 in Lebanon Junction, Bullitt Co., Kentucky, by Amy Magruder.
Magruder's great-grandfather was the Revolutionary War veteran Archibald Magruder. A Brass Placque over his gravestone indicates: Pvt, 4th Co., 29th Battalion of the State Militia of Maryland, 1778.He is buried in a Magruder cemetery at Bernheim Forest.
Magruder's grandfather was Ezekiel Magruder (1790 - 1863).
Joining the Confederate States Army when 17 and serving in General Simon B. Buckner's command Magruder took part in the battle of Fort Donelson in February, 1862. Fort Donelson on Cumberland River was targeted by the Union in an effort to cut the Confederacy in two by moving via the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers down the Mississippi River to the Gulf.
Magruder belonged to those 13,000 Confederates captured at Fort Donelson by the Union forces of General Ulysses S. Grant. Escaping from Fort Donelson he became a member of Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston's bodyguard. Gen. Johnston, born in Kentucky but a Republic of Texas war veteran and Secretary of War of the Republic, had been assigned command of the Western Department by President Jefferson Davis. After the Confederate defeats at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson he moved his line of defense to the vicinity of Nashville, Tennessee, and later to Corinth, Mississippi. He was killed in the Battle of Shiloh on 6 April, 1862, leading his forces. Once more Henry C. Magruder had to seek a new Confederate command. He joined as a soldier in General John Morgan's command. Taking part in General Morgan's Great Ohio raid he escaped capture. The raid began when General Morgan with 2,500 men in the beginning of July 1863 crossed the Ohio River. The forces struck to the northeast across Indiana into Ohio but had to surrender at Salineville, Ohio, in face of large Union forces.
Returning to Kentucky Magruder formed a guerrilla command that was active during 1864 in the area south of Louisville. In February, 1865, Magruder and other Confederate guerrillas including Jerome Clarke (Sue Mundy), a famous Kentucky irregular, were southeast of Hawesville, Hancock County, when ambushed by Unionist Home Guardsmen. They fired at the guerrillas with .44-caliber Ballard repeaters. Magruder charged them on horseback but was hit in the right arm and the bullet lodged in his lower chest or abdomen.
Retreating and riding off toward Cloverport, the guerrilla command was ambushed a second time. Now Magruder was wounded by a bullet in the right lung. The wounded Magruder with Clarke and Henry Metcalfe, a Ohio County guerrilla, managed to avoid Union troops for two weeks. Magruder was treated by a doctor in Breckinridge County. Acting on a tip of an informer Union soldiers found the guerrillas in a barn near the doctor's residence. Surrounded they were captured on March 12, 1865. Clarke was tried, sentenced to death and hanged on March 15, while Magruder was kept alive by the Federals in a Louisville prison to be tried, sentenced to death and executed by hanging on the 20th of October, 1865, over six months after the surrender at Appomattox. He reached the age of 22 years.
By coincidence Missouri Confederate guerrilla Colonel William C. Quantrill for a few weeks came to languish in the same Federal prison in Louisville as Magruder. Quantrill, on his final Kentucky raid, was captured and mortally wounded on 10th May, 1865, at Wakefield, Kentucky, and brought to the military prison hospital at Tenth Street and Broadway in Louisville. There Quantrill lay dying until just before he expired he was transported to a Catholic Hospital. He passed away on June 6th and his last words has been said to be: "Boys, get ready, steady". Quantrill was 27 years old. The reason the Missourian Quantrill and Marcellus Jerome Clarke (alias Sue Mundy) are so well known is that they both had newspapermen, who wrote about them, but Magruder had no sponsor
in the media. As you all know Quantrill was made famous by John Edwards, who fought in Jo Shelby's Iron Brigade and then followed Shelby to Mexico after the war. Edwards was the historian of this unique expedition and chronicler of the activities of Shelby's Iron Brigade. In the last twenty years of Edward's life he wrote about Quantrill and his men in daily newspapers in Missouri and in 1877 the book Noted Guerrillas was published. In the case of Clarke it was, as you all know, George Prentice, editor of the Louisville Daily Journal, that made the Kentucky guerrilla captain famous, but for the wrong reasons. He claimed Clarke was a female guerrilla named Sue Mundy, and the readers were fascinated.
Shepherd, Lt. George *+ Quantrill Survived war
His family was originally from Virginia, moving first to Nelson County, KY, then to Jackson County, MO. Born on a farm near Independence, in Jackson County, MO, 17 January 1842. At 15, he joined the troops of General Albert Sidney Johnston for the operations against the Mormons in Utah. Joined the Confederate Army at the outbreak of the war, and fought honorably at Wilson's Creek and Pea Ridge. When General Price was ordered east of the Mississippi, George returned home and joined Quantrill. Married Martha Sanders Maddox (see Matt Sanders), a widow after the war. She was a Confederate spy. Spent time in KY pententiary, for trying to hold up the bank at Russellville, KY on 20 March 1868. Uncle of Ike Flannery, who was killed by Jesse James after the War for his inheritance. Reported to have wounded Jesse James at Short Creek (near Joplin, MO), in a plot with Jesse to get the reward money. Killed James Anderson, brother of "Bloody Bill" Anderson by cutting his throat on the lawn of the state capitol in Austin, Texas.
Shepherd, Martin Quantrill Killed 1862
Shepherd, Oliver "Ol" + Quantrill Survived war
Brother or cousin of George W. Shephard. Participated in robbery of Russelville, KY, bank. Traced by to Missouri, where dectectives caught him at one of the family homes (his father's, George's, or his own). Ordered to surrender. One report says he tried to shoot his way out, and was shot 7 times and killed. The other report, from eye-witness Margaret Shephard, his grand- daughter, said he was unarmed, and was shot 20 times and killed by police officers in 1868.