- Joined
- Dec 3, 2011
- Location
- Laurinburg NC
"An exchange mentions as a most wonderful exhibition
of presence of mind and instantaneous action in
the presence of great danger an act of Col. Sid Cunningham,
of Gen. John H. Morgan's command, during the Ohio raid. It
was when the attempt was made to escape from the
Buckeye State into Virginia by swimming the Ohio River. The river
at that point was about half a mile wide and very
deep. A long string of cavalrymen extended entirely
across the stream. generally in twos, each encouraging his
gallant steed, Col Cunningham and a comrade were
swimming their horses side by side, Cunningham being on
the 'lower side and in midstream, when a Federal gunboa
hove in sight around a bend in the river, and without ceremony
fired a shell into the swimming column, shooting off the head of
Cunningham's horse and killing his comrade. Cunningham
grabbed the dead man's horse by the mane and held on like
grim death, while the noble steed bore him safely across to the Virginia shore.
Many inquiries have been made as to whether "Sid"
Cunningham is editor of the Veteran. That gallant
Confederate was never known by the editor, whose first
name is "Sumner" '.
CONFEDERATE VETERAN
Volume # V No 8
1897
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