Military Monday: Morgan's Raid, Ohio Claims

The 1863 raid of George Hunt Morgan’s cavalry into Ohio was a frightening episode of the Civil War for rural Ohioans. Some of my ancestors lived in northern Gallia and southern Meigs counties near each of the two routes his troops took between Vinton and Buffington Island. Years ago I saw a copy of a report of claims of losses by residents of the area but none of my relatives were on the list. I believe I saw it at the Meigs County Historical Society in Pomeroy.

Today the question arose on the Meigs County mailing list of where to find the names of those with claims and what they lost. Not remembering the title of what I’d seen off hand, I searched various terms in the catalog of WorldCat (www.worldcat.org). There I found two different digital copies online through Hathi Trust Digital Library. (http://tinyurl.com/3qnfcvb). I looked at the version from the Library of Congress (digitized by Internet Archive) titled: Report of the Commissioners of Morgan Raid claims : to the Governor of the state of Ohio, December 15th, 1864; published in 1865. It contains introductory material, a table by county of losses and itemized lists by county. The names within each county are alphabetically arranged giving location and on the facing page the losses, claimed value, awarded value and the names of all who provided affidavits. Gallia County begins on page 76 and Meigs on 176 through 213.

There were also claims recorded in Indiana but I only looked into the Ohio records. The next step would be to find where (and if) the original documents are now.