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Above: flag of the second kentucky cavalry
Courtesy: Civil War Museum of the Western Theater
Bardstown, Kentucky

The Lexington Rifles – Company A, 2nd Kentucky Cavalry – is an organization that portrays John Hunt Morgan's cavalry skirmishers during the War for Southern Independence. Affiliated with the Kentucky Cavalry Brigade, it is a fully democratic, family-oriented group of unreconstructed Confederates from...

One of the objectives of this organization is to recognize the bravery and devotion of all those Confederates who fought and sacrificed for the cause of Constitutional Liberty, and to honor them by reenacting their struggle in a manner that is authentic, professional, educational, safe, and enjoyable.

"Sentiment moves the world; man is nothing without it. He who feels no pride
in his ancestors is unworthy to be remembered by his descendants."
.
-- Major David French Boyd, 9th Louisiana Infantry
First President of Louisiana State University

The Lexington Rifles militia company was formed in 1857 by a dashing Lexington businessman who was a veteran of the war with Mexico. A Kentucky patriot who would later become one of the most famous cavalry leaders in history, John Hunt Morgan would ultimately rise to the rank of Brigadier General in the Confederate Army. During the War for Southern Independence, his daring exploits and fearless leadership prompted fame and fable to crown him as the . . .

With sectional tensions rising in America in 1860, Kentucky organized her militia units into a State Guard to protect the neutrality of the Commonwealth. It was into this vanguard that the Lexington Rifles were commissioned by order of the Governor. A year later, with war fever raging in the country, Kentucky's neutrality came to an end and the State Guard disbanded. As the respective militia units chose their separate national allegiances, John Morgan led his men out of Lexington to join the Confederate Army in serving the cause of States Rights and Constitutional Liberty.

Following their induction into Confederate service, the Lexington Rifles were organized with two other companies to form a cavalry command known as Morgan's Cavalry Squadron. Led valiantly by Captain Morgan and his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Basil Duke, the squadron quickly gained renown under the sobriquet of "Morgan's Raiders". And, after fighting bravely at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, Morgan's Squadron became the nucleus for organization of the 2nd Kentucky Cavalry when that famous regiment was formed two months later in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Throughout the war, Morgan and his men branded their names into military history by raiding deeply into enemy controlled territory and by ranging across ten states. In July 1863, they took their fight for freedom into the states of Indiana and Ohio, thereby earning themselves the distinction of penetrating farther north than any other Confederate force during the war. Two months later, while temporarily under the command of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, they were credited with firing the first and last shots at the Battle of Chickamauga. And, at the end of the war it was Morgan's men who were among those who escorted President Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Treasury through Georgia.

On May 8, 1865, the tattered remnants of Duke's Cavalry Brigade, the antecedents of the Lexington Rifles, gathered for their last muster in Woodstock, Georgia. On that day, this group of brave and determined men represented the last military command of the Confederacy to receive orders directly from the War Department; given personally by the Secretary of War, Major General John C. Breckinridge. This act brought to truth the statement previously made in South Carolina by one of Morgan’s men when he replied to a lady who protested that the men from Kentucky were appropriating her provisions. He said to her,

"M'am, you people in South Carolina may have started this war,
but we Kentuckians have contracted to close it out."

On a blustery 1st Day of April 2000 in Wauconda, Illinois, the Lexington Rifles were once again mustered into Confederate service, determined to honor the proud sacrifices and brave exploits of Morgan's Men.

A special source of pride for the Lexington Rifles has been the honor for some of its members to repeat the solemn oath of Confederate service on the steps of the former Green River Baptist Church in Woodsonville, Kentucky. The steps and foundation stones at the site where the original induction ceremony took place on October 27, 1861, are all that remain of the church building after it was desecrated and burned to the ground by Lincoln's hirelings in 1862.