The 10th Michigan Cavalry was also a chapter in a book I wrote, (Forest Haven Soldiers) that is now out of print but will have a new edition out in a few years.
Anyway, if you are interested in this subject, I'll share some of my past info. on the subject here (with my references), though please reference "Forest Haven Soldiers" if you choose to use any of my writing:
"From a Yankee perspective I will note that there were some very bitter feelings against Confederate Guerrillas from the particular Yankee Cavalry units at the time of Morgan's capture.... (Duke University holds some papers related to the capture if you'd like to know more). I grew up in the same county as where 10th MI Cav. Captain Edwin Brooks lived. (He had served with Libbie Custer's cousin in the Artillery before joining the MI Cavalry). I also have an article submitted to "Civil War Historian" magazine that may be out later. In the article, I give more credence to the MI version of the capture that seems to make more sense, rather than some of the southern accounts that have been in print where they claim Morgan was begging to surrender, (See below excerpts) as I felt Morgan was too gallant for that...
- Leonard G. Overmyer III Http://360.yahoo.com/overmyerhistoricals http://www.geocities.com/overmyerhistoricals/
"The 13th Tennessee Cavalry (under Major William F. Bradford), had been one of the defending regiments in the infamous Fort Pillow massacre four months prior that resulted in the deaths of captured Negro Soldiers by troops under Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest.
The 10th Michigan Cavalry had many officers that had previously served in the Michigan Cavalry brigade, their commander (Trowbridge) and others having served previously in the 5th MI Cavalry. At Berryville, Virginia, on August 19, 1864, some of Mosby’s Confederate guerrillas captured and murdered thirteen members of the 5th Michigan Cavalry...Mosby had been a scout for Confederate Cavalry General Jeb Stuart and his partisans operated in squads of twenty to eighty men, attacking Union outposts, wagon trains, and straggler. According to a member of the unit, “Some were shot, some had their throats cut, others hung and tortured in every style, equal to savages.” General Custer sent out a detachment and burned several buildings near the place.[i] News of these events reached the 10th Michigan Cavalry with great emotion as many of the officers had previously served in the 5th Michigan Cavalry. The following month, Mosby gave orders that captured Michigan men are to be separated from other prisoners and executed.
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>> Some of the most infamous guerrilla raids occurred around this time in the western theater in Missouri and Kansas. William Clarke Quantrill and his pathological followers including the Younger brothers, Frank and Jessie James, and “Bloody Bill” Anderson slaughtered isolated garrisons and posts, murdering unarmed men and boys. One very young boy, dressed in a pretend Union uniform, was gunned down in the streets by a raider. At the Baxter Springs Massacre, a 12 year old Union drummer boy was burned alive. Union soldiers would eventually kill both Quantrill and Anderson before the end of the war.[ii]
Excerpts:
"Reaching the second camp, the enemy is found in better condition. General Gillam then came up with Colonel Brownlow’s 9th Tennessee Cavalry. Brownlow charged in with sabers, but a sharp fire from the enemy drove the regiment back. Then Colonel Miller’s 13th Tennessee Cavalry came up and engaged the Rebels that had been driving back the 9th TN as the 10th MI Cavalry opens fire at about half pistol range with carbines, and soon the road is blocked with dead and wounded men and horses. The Confederates hastily fall back to the woods and the Artillery shells them out to Greenville . The 13th Tennessee Cavalry (under Major William F. Bradford), had been one of the defending regiments in the infamous Fort Pillow massacre four months prior that resulted in the deaths of captured Negro Soldiers by troops under Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest.
"A woman named Catharine Williams had helped to notify General Gillem of Morgan’s location at her estate and Union spy Sarah Lane Thompson managed to slip away and alert Union forces to his whereabouts. Her husband had served as a Union captain for the 1st Tennessee Cavalry and had been killed by a Confederate soldier. That day in Greeneville of early September, 1864 as the 25 year old Thompson was preparing a treat in her kitchen for her daughters, John Hunt Morgan happened by on his way around town. He swaggered about, telling her that he was headed for Knoxville , saying that he would send for her since she would “make some Rebel a Good wife.” She could only listen in bitter frustration and things didn’t get better when several of Morgan’s men came in and began to raid her food supplies. She later wrote, “… (I) got a horse and went to our forces that was at Bulls Gap and sent the word in to our forces when Gillem, who was general then, when he heard the news he did not believe it as he said it was a woman’s tale, the colonel of the 3rd (9th) Tennessee whose name is Brownlow and the 10th Michigan and seven others said they would go and after they talked and at last they started...”
" Union troops invaded the area and by her accounts, Thompson personally pointed out John Hunt Morgan (who was in a grape garden after much maneuvering and skirmishing) to Union troops who promptly shot him dead. General Morgan was shot by Sergeant Andrew J. Cambell of the 13th TN Cavalry while rushing for his horse. Though some Confederate accounts claimed Morgan had surrendered before being shot, the Michigan reports gave a more plausible account: “Captain Larkin Blackburn had shouted for him to surrender and Morgan throwing a coat retorted, “Not while I live!” Both drew revolvers and fired at each other in warning but missed (they had been schoolmates together and Blackburn had enlisted as a surgeon). Morgan yelled out, “ Blackburn !” and was shot through the heart by Sgt. Campbell of Captain Christopher C. Wilcox’s squadron. He fell toward the feet of Darius H. Grow of Co. H. 10th MI Cavalry. Morgan’s staff (among who was a grandson of Henry Clay), 100 men, and six pieces of artillery were taken.”
Darius H. Grow lived until 1916 and was buried in Adrian , MI . Sarah Lane Thompson later noted that she was taken under the custody of Captain Edwin J. Brooks of the 10th Michigan Cavalry with members of the Tennessee U.S. Cavalry after a shoot out with Confederate troops.[i] Southerners complained about the way General Morgan’s body was handled and so it was eventually turned over to the Confederacy."
Copyright 1999-2006 - Leonard G. Overmyer III excerpts from "Forest Haven Soldiers" 1999 Overmyer Historicals, Grand Rapids, Mi and the up-coming book, "The Lakeshore Tigers"
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[i] Michigan in the War by John Robertson, Adj. General, (Lansing, MI: W.S. George & Co. State Printers and Binders, 1882) Ibid; Sarah E. Thompson Papers, Duke University, Ibid; Don Burgin, Voices from the Past, 2000; General L.S. Trowbridge, A Brief History of the Tenth Michigan Cavalry, (Detroit, MI; Friesema Bros. Printing Co. 1905), Ibid.
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>> [i] Karla Jean Husby and Eric J. Wittenberg, Under Custer’s Command, The Civil War Journal of James Henry Avery, (Brassey’s Inc., Dulles, Virginia: 2000) 105.
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>> [ii] Passim Sources; Albert E. Castel, William Clarke Quantrill: His Life and Times (New York, 1962) Ibid; Stuart W. Sanders, “The Baxter Springs Massacre,” America’s Civil War, (September, 2005) 35.
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Michigan_Veterans_of_the_US_Civil_War/