On the 8th of March, John Morgan, the then famous partisan irregular cavalry raider, dashed from a narrow road along the west side of the Insane Asylum, located about five miles from Nashville on the Murfreesboro pike, and captured, in daylight, a part of a wagon train inside our lines and made off over a by-road with Captain Braden of General Dumont's staff, who had the train in charge, the teamsters, and about eighty horses and mules. Colonel John Kennett, with a portion of his regiment (4th Ohio Cavalry) pursued and overtook Morgan, killed and wounded a portion of his raiders, and recaptured Captain Braden and the drivers; also the horses and mules. About this time Mitchel organized a party of infantry to be rapidly transported in wagons, and some cavalry, to move by night upon Murfreesboro, with the expectation of surprising a small force there. The expedition started, but had not proceeded far when about nine o'clock at night the head of the expedition was met by Morgan and about twenty-five of his men with a flag of truce, he pretending to desire to make some inquiry. The flag of truce at night was so extraordinary that he and his party were escorted to the Asylum grounds, and there detained until Buell could be communicated with. The expedition was, of course, abandoned, and about midnight Morgan and his escort were dismissed. Columbus, Kentucky, regarded as a Gibraltar of strength, strongly fortified and supplied with many guns, most of which were of heavy calibre, deemed necessary to prevent the navigation of the Mississippi, was occupied by General Leonidas Polk with a force of 22,000 men, but on being threatened with attack by Commodore Foote and General W. T. Sherman, was evacuated March 2, 1862.(31) The State of Kentucky thus became practically free from Confederate occupancy, and the Mississippi, for a considerable distance below Cairo was again open to navigation from the North. ( 1) _War Records_, vol. iii., pp. 255, 442. ( 2) _War Records_, vol. iii., pp. 255, 442. ( 3) _Ibid_., pp. 466, 469, 485, 553, 567. ( 4) _War Records_, vol. iii., pp. 466, 469, 485, 533, 567 ( 5) _Ibid_., pp. 144, 274, 312. ( 6) _Ibid_., vol. iv., pp. 296-7, 300, 314, and 333, 341. ( 7) _War Records_, vol. v., p. 570. ( 8) Sherman was, in January, 1861, Superintendent of the Military Academy at Alexandria, Louisiana, over the door of which, chiselled in marble, was its motto: "_By the liberality of the General Government of the United States. The Union--Esto perpetua_."