With his path now relatively clear, Morgan headed eastward on July 13 past Cincinnati and rode across southern Ohio, stealing horses and supplies along the way.

Ohio Governor David Tod called out the local militia, and volunteers formed companies to protect towns and river crossings throughout the region.

Running a gauntlet of small arms fire, Morgan's men were denied access to the river and to Middleport itself (which had a ferry), and he headed towards the next ford upstream at Buffington Island, some 20 miles to the northeast.

Arriving near Buffington Island and the nearby tiny hamlet of Portland, Ohio, towards evening on July 18, Morgan found that the ford was blocked by several hundred local militia ensconced behind hastily constructed earthworks.

Lt Commander Leroy Fitch's fleet included the Brilliant, Fairplay, Moose, Reindeer, St. Clair, Silver Lake, Springfield, Victory, Naumkeag, and Queen City, which were tinclads and gunboats.

The Army's "amphibious division" officer, Major General Ambrose E. Burnside at his Cincinnati headquarters, provided intelligence of Morgan's march and turned his flagship, Alleghany Belle, over to Fitch before the battle.

Meanwhile, Parkersburg logistics terminal had sent a local armed packet with 9th Infantry sentries below Blennerhassett Island on word of the battle's gunfire some twenty miles below.

Moose and the Allegheny Belle, steamed into the narrow channel separating Buffington Island from the flood plain and opened fire on Morgan's men, spraying them with shell fragments.

It proved to be an exercise in futility, as the converging U.S. columns split apart Morgan's force, and 52 Confederates were killed, with well over one hundred badly wounded in the swirling fighting.

Morgan's beleaguered troops soon headed upstream for the unguarded ford opposite Belleville, West Virginia, where over 300 men fled across the Ohio River, most notably Stovepipe Johnson and famed telegrapher George Ellsworth.

Halfway across the ford, Morgan noted with dismay that his remaining men were trapped on the Ohio side as the Union gunboats suddenly loomed into view.

Over the next few days, they failed to find a secure place to cross the river, and Morgan's remaining force was captured on July 26 in northern Ohio following the Battle of Salineville.

Comparatively little changed on the Buffington Island battlefield in the first century after the fighting; the only substantial difference was the placement of a stone obelisk marking the battle.

Embracing approximately 4 acres (1.6 ha) near the river, the designated portion of the battlefield was the county's first location to be recognized as this type of historic site.