Book description
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.
""John Hunt Morgan's Kentucky cavalrymen stand perhaps
second only to Jeb Stuart's Virginians in public perceptions of
dashing mounted Confederates, yet few memoirs from Morgan's men have
survived. John M. Porter's early postwar recollections, as elegant
annotated by Kent Masterson Brown, are at once authoritative,
balanced, and engagingly anecdotal. Anyone interested in the exploits
of that daring and romantic body of Kentuckians will profit from
reading One of Morgan's Men."--William C. Davis, Center for Civil
War Studies, Virginia Tech" --
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.
