Hi Sandra I think that you are underestimating the size of the unit that marched through Bellaire. This was not simply a regiment or two. Let me quote from my genealogy program what I have found and am asking about. "As a young man of about 16 he was a witness to one of the greatest troop movements, to that time, by railroad, in the history of this country pre World War I. After the Battle of Chickamauga the Army of Tennessee, commanded by Braxton Bragg, was besieging the Army of the Cumberland commanded by Major General William S. Rosecrans in the city of Chantanooga. The situation was desperate. After a meeting in Washington D.C. it was determined to shift troops by rail and steamer from the Army of the Potomac to Rosecrans. In early September 1863, the 11th and 12th Corps (20,000 men, 3,000 horses and 10 artillery batteries with baggage and equipment) broke camp along the Rapidan River. "On the morning of September 17 the lead trains rumbled to a stop at Benwood where the tracks ended at the river's edge. Spanning the mighty waterway was a pontoon bridge that had been fashioned from river scows and coal barges. For hours the weary troops marched over the bridge and up the west bank to Bellaire, Ohio, where more rail cars awaited." Wrote Walt Whitman: "...They go through night and day. I hear the whistle of the locomotive screaming away any time at night when I wake up, and the rumbling of the trains..." "Never before had so many troops been moved over such a long distance in so short a time." Just imagine the the feelings and sights of that vast movement of men and implements of death, suffering and destruction! The campfires on the hills surrounding Bellaire, the thunder of the drums and fifes of each regiment sounding drummer's call and then reveille each morning starting at 0545 (or even far earlier), the creak and clatter of the batteries, the cursing of the teamsters (and artillery men) as they moved their wagons of forage, food and ammunition (each of the ammunition wagons would have the corps insignia on the canvas and the caliber of the ammunition loaded in them), the commands of the officers, the steady tramping of thousands of men marching through the streets, the regimental ambulances with the blood soaked litters hanging on the sides. What were the road conditions? If muddy, the local roads would quickly have been essentially rendered impassable as the wheels of the wagons and limbers sank into, what the men often spoke of as "mortar". Perhaps the few remaining regimental bands might have played popular tunes for the troops, "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood" or perhaps "Home, Sweet Home", "Weeping Sad and Lonely". If the regiments marched with their colors uncased the people along the route might have seen the colors, worn by weather and torn in battle, the condition of the men and their uniforms and come to the sobering conclusion that a military body, bloodied and worn by battle and extended field duty, executing a "movement to contact" is indeed a sobering sight, perhaps giving them a ever so slight insight into what happens "on the Field of Honor". " My source for the first paragraph was the Civil War Times Illustrated, Sep./Oct. 1992, Vol. 31, No. 4. I would wonder if there might be a historical society that would have something. Bill