By the time of the Civil War, Cave City was said to have “one hotel, one church, one schoolhouse and a Masonic Hall combined, three dry goods stores, three saloons, two drug stores, two doctors, one wagon shop, two blacksmith shops, one jewelry store and watchmaker, two lawyers, one tobacco warehouse, a depot, and a telegraph office.” The population was 150.

The railroad was a strategic resource for Cave City during the War Between the States. The railroad station served Federal troops in the area; and because of this, it became a target for John Hunt Morgan, the Confederate General, who was active in Kentucky and southward.

CSA General John Hunt Morgan and a company of troops arrived in Cave City, May 11, 1862. They seized a train which had been reported to carry prisoners of war – some of Morgan's men captured at Lebanon, Tennessee. Instead, it carried railroad employees, whom he released. Morgan burned the train, and later detained a second one carrying passengers. Among them were two officers of the command of Col. Frank Wolford, USA.

Source: Kentucky Historical Society and Kentucky Department of Highways

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The following is an excerpt from REBEL RAIDER – The Life of General John Hunt Morgan by James A. Ramage.

Marching at night on little-used bridle paths, they [Morgan & his men] approached Bowling Green. A scout reported that it was guarded by 500 Union troops, so Morgan went on northward to Cave City, a station on the L & N in the Mammoth Cave region. Nearing there on May 11, he was still feeling low. Morgan later wrote:

I was very far from well. My hands were swollen and sore – and my feet so swollen I could scarce get more than my toe in the stirrup. I had on a jeans suit, a citizen weighing some 200 lbs. had exchanged with me. I was effectually disguised and looked like a little boy going to meet in his father’s clothes. I rode up alone to the station, got off my horse and sat down on the rails to rest my feet. The conductor came up and taking me for some old farmer who was waiting for the train, inquired the news.

“Oh! Nothing much” I replied, “only they tell me that John Morgan’s captured.”

Whereupon he fell to cursing Morgan – vowing that he never was so glad of anything in his life – that Morgan ought to have been hung long ago – he hoped the guerilla scoundrel would get his deserts now, etc. I told him I agreed with him. Just then a party of my men rode up and as soon as they saw me exclaimed:

“Well Capt. Morgan what are we to do?”

Imagine the face of that conductor.

Morgan and the advance guard seized the station and captured the next train that pulled in. The entire command soon arrived, and together they destroyed the train: four passenger cars, a locomotive, and forty-five freight cars. Morgan remembered how they filled the firebox with wood, set it on fire, fired each car, and sent it racing down the track toward Nashville. “It was a grand sight that burning train going at headlong speed to destruction,” he said. For weeks, passengers traveling through Cave City were awed by the scene where the locomotive had exploded. For 100 yards on both sides of the track the underbrush and grass were burned, saplings and trees torn out by the roots, and small metal fragments scattered on the ground.

At noon, guards north of the station heard the approach of a passenger train bound for Nashville from Louisville. The men erected a barrier by placing upright beams in a cow gap, and a squad hid in the trees up the track, ready to throw logs on the rails behind the train once it stopped. A great many women were among the passengers, and Morgan enjoyed telling Virginia French of McMinnville what happened when he entered their car.

I was amused at the Yankee ladies. Poor things, they were going down to Nashville to see their friends. They crowded round me crying: ‘Oh, Capt. Morgan what are you going to do with our trunks? What are you going to do with us?’ I give you my word Mrs. French – the trunks came first. They doubtless had in them some of those three story Yankee Bonnets to astonish Nashville with.

One pretty girl – she had been only lately married – her husband was with her – a Federal officer in poor health – this pretty girl grasped my hand in both her’s [sic] sobbing, ‘Oh, Capt. Morgan what will you do with my husband? I could not resist such a sweet face. I said, ‘Madame, I do not know whether I am doing you a kindness or not – but if you desire it – your husband shall accompany you home.’ She kissed my hand and thanked me a thousand times – my hand Mrs. French, that had not been washed for two days – and was as black as it could be besides with firing that train.

Morgan confiscated $6,000 in cash from the express agent, took two officers and a few enlisted men as prisoners, and allowed the train to return safely to Louisville, with the ladies and their baggage. Then he marched back to Confederate lines in Tennessee.

The Federal authorities were enraged. “John Morgan, the pimp of Southern chivalry … has collected a few followers and captured an unarmed train, in Kentucky, robbing the passengers and the express company,” a correspondent wrote. “Pity some of the aristocracy of Murfreesboro could not lionize him, pet him, kiss him, for his daring bravery in such honorable warfare.” Union Gen. George Morgan deployed infantry to guard trains and stations in central Kentucky and demanded cavalry to guard wagon trains supplying his campaign at Cumberland Gap. James Guthrie, president of the L&N Railroad, complained to the postmaster general that Morgan’s raids had cost the company more than it had made in four years of carrying the mail.

Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee, recognized the raid as a serious threat to his efforts to strengthen public sentiment for the Union. It occurred on the day before what Johnson had hoped would be the largest Union rally ever held in Nashville. The effect of the meeting was dampened by the fact that the favorite topic of conversation among the crowd was Cave City. Johnson sensed the tremendous appeal Morgan had with the people, and he viewed guerilla raids as a menace to his authority. He complained to Washington that incursions such as this undermined Union successes in larger engagements and inspired secessionists to greater resistance.

For more reading about John Hunt Morgan, please visit the John Hunt Morgan Heritage Trail in Kentucky

For more information about Civil War sites and monuments in Kentucky, please visit Civil War Sites in Kentucky

In 1861, 2,000 men assembled at Cave City and marched 30 miles to Bowling Green to join 4,000 other southern sympathizers in the Orphan Brigade. Almost half a century later, on August 6, 1909, these men held a reunion in Cave City. An estimated crowd of 6,000 filled the town, which was well decorated with Confederate flags. Captain John H. Weller, commander of the Orphan Brigade, led a parade of the men in gray. The last survivor of Company G, Second Kentucky Infantry, James A. McDonald of Kansas City, was present. After his enlistment, his first act had been to help blow up the depot at Cave City. On August 28, 1999, about 100 years later, the Orphan Brigade Kinfolk’s held their annual meeting in Glasgow.

After the collapse of Kentucky’s neutrality, Joseph Horace Lewis, a member of a wealthy Barren County family, served in the Confederacy and established a camp near Cave City, where he recruited and trained men for the Southern Army. He and Martin Hardin Cofer combined their recruits to form the 6th Kentucky Infantry of which Joseph Lewis became a colonel in November of 1861. General Lewis was born in Barren County and is buried in the Glasgow Cemetery. He served as a member of the Kentucky Court of Appeals for 24 years and Chief Justice for six years.