The Final Escort

The 9^th Pennsylvania Cavalry was organized August 29^th 1861 at Camp Cameron, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The 9^th Pennsylvania Cavalry was made up of twelve companies recruited mostly from southeast and southcentral Pennsylvania. The regiment was organized near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania at Camp Cameron on August 29^th 1861. After being trained the regiment was moved to Kentucky, where it became part of the Department of the Cumberland. In March they were ordered to Tennessee, where they tangled with Confederate John Hunt Morgan. They were reassigned to the Union Army of the Ohio, where they saw a small amount of action at the Battle of Perryville in October 1862. During the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863 they guarded the right flank of the Union army, and following the rout there, the 9^th stayed and fought with Union General George Thomas.

In April 1864 the 9^th’s enlistment was up. The men who re-enlisted took a furlough to go home and recruit. They would reform and see action that fall in Kentucky and Tennessee. When Union General William T Sherman began his march, the 9^th was included, seeing action in the Battle of Griswoldville. On April 17^th 1865 the 9^th was part of the escort for Union General Sherman when he went to meet Confederate General Joseph E Johnston at the Bennett Farm to discuss surrender. Following the ending of the war the 9^th was mustered out at Lexington, Kentucky.

The First Time In Town

In Rutherford County, Tennessee on July 13th 1862 the First Battle of Murfreesboro was fought.


Union Major General Don Carlos Buell started his Army of the Ohio toward Chattanooga, Tennessee from Corinth, Mississippi on June 10th 1862. In response to this Union threat, Confederate Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest moved to Chattanooga. In early July Confederate cavalry under Forrest and Colonel John Hunt Morgan began raiding around Middle Tennessee and Kentucky.

On July 9th 1862 Forrest took two cavalry regiments and left Chattanooga. He met up with some other Confederate units, making his total force about 1,400 men. The target was the Union supply depot on the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Union troops under Brigadier General Thomas Turpin Crittenden where garrisoned in three location around the town of Murfreesboro. They were made up of parts of four companies of infantry, cavalry and artillery. In the early morning of July 13th 1862 Forrest’s cavalry engaged Union picket east of Murfreesboro, and then overran a Union hospital and the camp of the 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry. The Confederate soldiers then moved onto the Union troops at the Murfreesboro’s jail and courthouse. By that afternoon all of the Union troops had surrendered, a total of about 1,000 men. The Confederates destroyed the railroad tracks and most of the Union supplies. The Confederates lost about 150 men.

Largest Group Of Confederates

Confederate General Joseph E Johnson’s army was camped at Greensboro on April 26th 1865 when he surrendered to General William Tecumseh Sherman at the Bennett Place.

After General Robert E Lee’s surrender seventeen days earlier at Appomattox Court House, Confederate General Joseph E Johnson knew it was time. Johnson with a detachment of the 5th South Carolina cavalry traveling east along the Hillsborough road toward Durham Station met Union General William Tecumseh Sherman who was riding west with an escort of the 9th and 13th Pennsylvania Cavalry at the farm of James and Nancy Bennett. The first day’s negotiations were interrupted by a telegram informing them of President Abraham Lincoln’s death. The first surrender agreement made on April 18th was rejected by the politicians in Washington, DC as being to generous. The two Generals met again on April 26th 1865  and signed papers that disbanded the largest Confederate force of the war, 98,270 soldiers.

Confederate General Richard A Taylor’s force in Alabama would surrender a week latter, and Kirby Smith would do the same with his Trans-Mississippi Army in New Orleans a month latter.