General John Morgan Memorial, Salem, Indiana

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This monument to Morgan's Raid stood in front of the Gilstrap place on the south side of Blue River, overlooking the South Main Street bridge -- at least it used to, before the Gilstrap place became Gilstrap's Shopping Mall. The stone, according to the card's caption, "marks the spot where General John Morgan entered Salem on his raid across southern Indiana, July 10, 1863."

This view is so poorly printed that the text of the marker is illegible. All one can make out is "General John Morgan" at the top of the tablet. (The Historical Advisory Board of brockcreek.com has been sent in search of the monument and is due to return with the text at any moment.) Meanwhile, you can glean the details from an official Indiana State Historical Marker located on the south side of the courthouse. It reads:

Morgan's Raid July 8-13, 1863
At this point Gen. John Hunt Morgan routed poorly armed militia and occupied Salem - July 10, 1863. The town was looted and $1,000 ransom exacted from each mill owner.

(Indiana Historical Marker 88.1963.1, according to the searchable database of Indiana historical markers at http://199.8.200.90:591/markers.html. Bring up the search page and enter "Washington" in the county field to see the text of all five historical highway markers in Washington County.)

There's probably a good bit more to say about Morgan's Raid, but very little of it is ever said around Salem. It was not, it seems, the finest hour of Washington County manhood. General John Hunt Morgan had ferried some 2,400 troops, many of them mounted cavalrymen, across the Ohio from Brandenburg, Kentucky to Maukport, Indiana on July 8, 1863. He made Corydon famous as the site of one of only two Civil War battles fought on Northern soil when the Home Guard put up a fight on July 9. He met less resistance the next day in Salem. Apparently far less -- so much less, in fact, that Salem just doesn't bring up the subject very often. Morgan's men burned the railroad depot and tore up some track, extracted some ransom money from the owners of the mills clustered along Blue River just south of the depot, and spent a few minutes looting the town, then rode off toward Lexington. (You can see a map of the path Morgan's Raiders took on the Indiana Historical Bureau site and read some history of the raid from Harrison County History Links.)

Charles McClintock series

Although it doesn't carry a publisher's credit, this card is one of a series of cards based on photographs probably taken by Charles "Chick" McClintock -- for more see the view of the east side of the Square. Like the others, it was printed by The Dexter Press, Pearl River, N.Y. It is unused.

There are currently six cards from the series in this collection, and two others identified:

In addition, I have a card in the same style, numbered 2585, that shows a view of the Orange County Courthouse in Paoli. Charles McClintock and his camera evidently ranged beyond the borders of Washington County, and the sequence of numbers is a mix of views of Salem and other towns. (4/21/03)

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