Known as the "Thunderbolt of the Confederacy," Confederate cavalry commander John Hunt Morgan played a prominent role in the Western counteroffensive of 1862 by conducting raids into Kentucky. A year later in June 1863, Morgan again moved toward the Ohio River Valley to raid Union supply lines and simultaneously divert Federal reinforcements from reaching Tennessee, where Confederate General Braxton Bragg and his Army of Tennessee were retreating in the face of a stronger Union force.

Morgan, a veteran of the Mexican War and a businessman by trade, decided to move his two cavalry brigades into Indiana and Ohio. He surmised that a trek across the southern counties of those two states would be more effective in relieving the pressure on Bragg. Morgan planned to raid Cincinnati, move east to the Ohio River, and then ride through Pennsylvania to join Lee's army. Although Bragg ordered him...