Sport Touring Corner By Norm Kern, MSTA Editor / ReasonsToRide.com Contributor
“Should I buy heated grips or heated
Morgan's Raid- A New Adventure/ Historical Route Every time I post a rides project on Facebook, responses come back from people telling about other routes in the area that might be of interest. This month we will look at a new Adventure route based on Morgan's Raid of 1863, a Civil War incursion of the Confederate cavalry into Union states Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. It is named for Confederate Commander John Hunt Morgan.
defend their farms and towns, the logistics of the time, means of communication, and so much of it was just guess-work and luck. The coolest part of the story is that it was just 150 years ago, so a person can still track down many of the buildings, creek crossings, skirmish sites, and visualize what occurred. Some of the farms mentioned along the way are still owned by the same families that owned them in 1863. Where did you get the idea to make an adventure route of it? Like many others, I got into adventure riding and moto camping to get my riding fix without having to commit to racing. I have ridden the Mid Atlantic Backcountry Discovery Route, parts of the Trans America Trail, parts of the Kentucky Adventure Tour, and the Smokey Mountain routes. Covering over 1000 miles, the raid's purpose was to draw Union troops away from the Vicksburg and Gettysburg fronts by frightening the North into demanding their troops return home. The raid ultimately failed, and the remainder of the command was forced to surrender in Northeast Ohio near the Pennsylvania border. Fast forward to 2022, and Jim Miller, a motorcyclist from Belpre, Ohio, is in the process of finishing an adventure route that follows the original Morgan's Raid path. I interviewed Jim recently and he has a great story to tell.
I like the idea of what Jeff Stoess is doing with the Kentucky Adventure Tour and trying to encourage tourism in some of the more out of the way rural places. There is no economic windfall to be had here for anyone, but hopefully it generates an appreciation of the roads less traveled. How did you find the actual route? The route turned out to be more of a challenge than just laying out a back roads moto route. There are a series of historical roadside markers that pay homage to the raid of 1863, so I knew I wanted to jump from marker to marker, while avoiding as many paved roads as possible.
How did you get interested in Morgan’s Raid? In about the fifth grade, there was a neighboring school named the “Morgan Raiders”, after the Civil War raid in 1863. That made me curious so I looked it up and did a report on it for history class. The more I learned about the story, the more it intrigued me. It's so much more than just a confederate raid into the North- it includes all the local villages who rallied to 32 32
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