Late in June of 1863 Tom again left General Grant's headquarters. These were then in the outskirts of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The long siege of that town, held by a considerable Confederate force under General Pemberton, was nearing its end. Tom longed to be in at the death, but that could not be. He had been sent with dispatches to Grant and this time there had been no suggestion by the President that he might fight a bit if he felt like it. So he was now again on his way to Washington. He was a long time getting there, nearly a year; and this was the way of it. July 2, 1863, Gen. John H. Morgan, a brilliant and daring Confederate cavalry commander, got his troops across the Cumberland River at Burkesville, in southern Kentucky, on flat-boats and canoes lashed together. None but he and his second in command knew whither the proposed raid was to lead. People about their starting-point thought Morgan was merely reconnoitering. An old farmer from Calfkills Creek went along uninvited, because he wished to buy some salt at a "salt-lick" a few miles north of Burkesville and within the Union lines. He expected to go and come back safely with Morgan's men. After he had been through a few marches and more fights and saw no chance of ever getting home, he plaintively said: "I swar ef I wouldn't give all the salt in Kaintucky to stand once more safe and sound on the banks of Calfkills Creek." Tom Strong, second-lieutenant, U. S. A., had not reckoned upon John H. Morgan, general C. S. A., when he planned his journey eastward from Cairo. No one dreamed that Morgan would dare do what he did do. The Confederate cavalry rode northward across Kentucky, with one or two skirmishes per day to keep it busy. It crossed the Ohio and fought for the South on Northern soil. It threatened Cincinnati. It threw southern Indiana and Ohio into a frenzy of fear. It did great damage, but damage such as the laws of civilized warfare permit. Morgan's gallant men were Americans. No woman or child was harmed; no man not under arms was killed. Military stores were seized or destroyed, food and supplies were taken, bridges were burned, railroads were torn up, and a clean sweep was made of all the horses to be found. The Confederate cavalry was in sad need of new horses. The Union officer who led the pursuit of Morgan said, in his official report: "His system of horse-stealing was perfect." But so far as war can be a Christian thing Morgan made it so. Now the railroad which suffered most from the Confederate raid was the one upon which Tom was traveling eastward. The train he had taken came to a sudden stop at a way-station in Ohio, where a red flag was furiously waved. "Morgan's torn up the track just ahead," shouted the man who held the flag.