Morgan's raiders cross the Ohio at Brandenburg

On July 7, 1863, the leading units of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's cavalry reached Brandenburg with orders to seize boats.

They captured two steamers — the mail boat J.T. McCombs and the passenger boat Alice Dean — by having the McCombs feign distress so the Alice Dean would pull alongside.

Over the following day roughly 2,000 men and their horses were ferried across the Ohio into Indiana. The Alice Dean was burned afterward. The McCombs was spared: her captain turned out to be a friend of one of Morgan's officers.

The crossing began the deepest Confederate penetration into northern territory of the entire war.