Our first fighting experience occured, as I have before mentioned, about two weeks after our enlistment, when we made a forced march of more than forty miles into the interior, to a little town called Madisonville. It was now about the 20{th} of August, and of course very hot. We had not yet learned to acconimise in the matter of clothing equipment, and evry man was loaded with nonessentials. This was the onley time that I had to march, and cary a gun, and 60 rounds of amunition, buckled onto my person, the old feeling of soreness, and exaustion apparently is present with me. We did not know that we were playing soldier at the time, and that the officers were trying to glorify themselves as great commanders and I rather think that they did not realy realize the insignificance of the display that they were making. Our approch to the town was very slow, and exausting, and I may say very humiliating afterwards when we found how insignificant the opposing forces were, which were composed of a few hundred marauding gorrilas, who would fire upon our advance colum from an ambush, and hold it, and watch our command form a line of battle, and when it moved forward, the enimy would retreat, and attack in the same way at the first opertunity that a favorable position offered. Our command consisted of our regiment, 1,000 strong, a battalion of the 4{th} Ind{iana} cavelry, and a section of artillery. It will suffice to say that we finaly took the town, without any casualties on either side, and the onley trop{h}ies that we could claim was a few honery prisnors, which were paraded arou{n}d with great pomp and circumstance. The loss occasioned by this foolish display did not appeare with the taking of the town, inside of ten days, one half of the command was in the hospital, as a result of the heat and exaustion of our first march, and first battle. I do not remember just how long we remained in the town of Madisonville, not more than three weeks I think, during which time we were kept under arms, almost day and night, by the gorrilas firing upon our picket lines, many of whom were citizens and living in the town, but would slip through our lines at night, and get in their work, many times with serious effect. The enimy threatened our communication with our base a{t} Henderson to the extent that we were compelled to retreat. When the orders were given that on the following day we would march back to our base, there were some mild evidences that a panic might insue. As an evidence of the insecurity felt by the men, I will relate a small incided that occured in my seargents divission of the company. A majority of our men were members of the church, and most of them mildly religious. Of course there would necessarily be a few cranks, who depended upon the lord to extrecate them from evry unpleasent condition or circumstance. About three of these fellows came into the tent, and requested me to let them hold a prayer meeting in our (Bell) tent. I asked them to explaine why they wanted to pray at that particular time, and they explained that inasmuch as we were compelled to retreat before a powerful enimy, the mercy and protection of the Lord should be invoked. I said to them that of course they could hold the meeting, but I wanted to remind them that if they got safely out of the present dilema, which I did not consider very serious, they would have to fight if necessary, and that the "Lord" would not protect them from any stray bulletts that the enimy might send after them. That if they had settled these important matters with their maker, they had better go out to some private retreat, and do so at once, and then come back, and discharge their duties as soldiers. They held the meting, and some of them prayed long and loud for the necessary protection. I will say that to my certain knowledge, that some of these fellows limped out a discharge in a very short time, and one of them were dismissed from the hospital for stealing from sick soldiers, but they served their maker without ostentation. The braking up of a camp under streneous circumstances, is always atended with more or less excitement, and loss. The soldier unloads all excess bagage, and military pharaphanalia, and prepares for vigerous, and quick marching. We were odered to stow away five days rations in our haversacks, which have a capacity for about three, and when I say to you that an unexperienced soldier will consume his five days rations in two days it is putting the suggestion mildly, which was practcaly realized before we reached our base of suplies. We had to march 44 miles, which we expected to do in two days but on account of the persisted interfearence of the third day, while we had but one contact with the enimy that would be a real fight, we had many delays, which was entirely precautionary. In the fight refered to quite a number of the soldiers in one company (H) were seriously wounded, and had to be left at a village nearby. After dark of the second day we arrived at the village of Cairo, 8 miles west from Henderson, foot sore, and discouraged. The five days rations had disappeared from the most of the haversacks, and the soldier that had a piece of meat, and a hardtac was considered a luckey boy. When a soldier is tired out from long marching and when he is ordered to go into camp, his first act is to sleep, and he usualy stacks his gun, and streches himself on the ground, and in an incredbly short time, he is obliveous to all of his surroundings. My disposition was always frugal, and I alowed nothing to get away from me that might contribute to my comfort. In passing through the abandoned camp I observed that much rations had been thrown on the ground, amoung which was a thin slab of bacon, about the size of a saddle flap, and it at once occured to me that it was a prety good thing to take care of, and I took it to the company wagon and dug down amoung the kettles and pans, and hid it. When we got to Cairo I looked around for something to eat, instead of going to sleep. I did not go far till I runup against the commissary sergant, who wanted something to eat. I informed him that I had secreted a good piece of bacon in our wagon, which I hoped that no one had discovered. He said that he thought he had a few crushed crackers in his wagon, that he would go and get, while I searched for my bacon. Well he found his crackers, and I secured my bacon, and in a short time we had a feast of hot coffee, crackers and bacon. I have found that the quickes{t} way to arrouse a tired, sleeping soldier, is the smell of hot coffee, and the frying of bacon, and in a short time we were surrounded by a hord of hungry soldiers, eagerly inquiring, "where we got it". When we arrived at our old camp neare Henderson, we felt that we had pulled off a great military stunt, and were fully entitled to the name "soldiers". We now settled down to real camp life, which we improved by drilling the regiment, and preparing it for active service. I had picked up considerable knowledge for the military tactics while a member of the homegards, and was about the best drilled man in the company,and was at once assigned to the squad drill manuvers. Furloghs were now granted to a small number of the soldiers, first to the ones that could present the best argument for a preference. We had not been in camp but a few weeks till my company was assigned to provo duty, with hedquarters in town. At first the company was quartered in the courthouse, but afterwards in an abandoned brick residence near the court house, which we called "Johnson's castle". There were many fireplaces in the old building, and we were made reasonably comfortable. It finaly came my turn to receive a furlogh, of about a week, to go home and fix up my little afares. I received the much covited oder late one evning, and as the time was short I felt I must improve evry hour. I therefore crossed the river, and marched home afoot. Some 30 miles, which I covered by four oclock the next morning. I think that it was the most dreary march that I ever made. The neighbors turned out and helped me to gather, and market my corn, and fix up other matters. I think I worked very hard evry hour of my stay, and my time was out all too soon. I will state here that my wife did not keep house while I was in the army, but lived with KY people, and those of her own side of the house. I got back to camp a little ahead of time, which I always did when granted a leave of absence. In our new position we were made quite comfortable, but our duties were very exasuting. Besids guarding prisnors we had to guard the entire city, performing all of the duties that a police force usually perform. Many of our men were on duty continuously, and all evry other day, which included the night, with very little sleep. The seargents were in command of all of the forces evry third day and during the 24 hours he was the most important official in town. He was not onley held responsible for the prisnors, which run all the way from 25 to a hundred. If any man escaped while he was on duty, he was reduced to the ranks, which occured once. But the victim was reinstated after a time, but never got any higher. Our prisnors were gorrillas, and marauders, and when we increased the number to about an hundred, we transfered them to Sanduskey, and Collumbus Ohio. On account of the hard duty that we had to perform, the winter passed slowly, and we sometimes envied the other companies, who were in camp near the town. In the matter of escaping prisnors I will mention one incident, with which I was individualy concerned. It was well along in March 1863, and we had about 80 gorrillas, who were about the worst characters that we had ever guarded, and when I came on duty, I made up my mind to give them my personal attention, more than ever before. I visited the prison about 5 oclock and found the guards all in place, and apparently very watchful, but I found an expression on the faces of the prisnors that I did not like, and I called to the corporal of the guard, and cautioned him to watch closely till I returned. I ran across the street to my quarter, and secured my navy revolver, and ran back to the prison, throgh the center of which I cleared a passage, and ordered the prisoners not to approach me. I remained in this position till 2 oclock AM, when a corporal came on, whom I could trust. The balance of the night passed without incident. I had ordered the men all to lie down in their places, and the corporal kept them there till day light. I made my report and was quite pleased to turn over to my successor the same number of men that I had received, and retired to my bunk to sleep, from which I was awaked by the seargent that had succeeded me who informed me that I had lost a prisnor. In passing I will state that Hickam was quite jubilent over the fact as it then appeared that he was the onley seargent that had not lost a prisnor. When the facts were looked into, it appeared that Seargent Colvin had received a prisnor just before turning over his command to me, and had not reported him to me on his report, which I made out for him. No one could tell how the man got away or find any possible way for his escape. Of course there was quite an uproar in camp. The Col (Foster) ordered myself, and guards, with captain to report at headquarters. The captain got into a quarrel over an old order, that we supposed was obsolete, and we were excused, and ordered to our quarters, which we lost no time in obeying, leaving the capt and the Col to fight it out, which they did with much harsh language, and without physical damage to to either, but this little incident was very mild indeed, compared to that which occured the next morning. I remember that it was a very rainey wet morning, and I slept beyond my usual time, but was awaked by my relyable corporal coming into my room. I could always tell when corporal Waldon had something of importance on his mind, and I onley waited for him to spit a few times, till I asked him what he had to communicate, which he answered by saying that Hickam had losed seven men last night. I got into my clothes as quickly as possible, and hurried to the courthouse where I found Hickam pacing on the outside, and to my hail as to the facts in the case, he said that if he had had the money he would have been on his way to Canady. He declared that he had not slept a wink that night, but stood guard most of the time himself. We had never given Collins, who succeeded Hickman, credit for any agressive penitrating stunts, and expected of him nothing new in developing this mysterious escape, but he surprised us all when he rearranged conditions in the prison, so that he uncovered a hole in the floor, through which escape{e}s had made their way to the lower story, and then out at a back door, that fastened on the inside with a bolt, and this door was suposed to be kept bolted, no attention was paid to it. When the Col looked at the hole in the floor, he admitted that the hole was sufficient to fool the best of guards. The intention on the part of the prisnors was to all get away while I was on duty, but were prevented from carrying out their plan, fully as intended, by my personal vigilance. We were much pleased over being releaved from sevier criticism on the part of the Col as it appeared to us but when we were ordered to camp, and another company had taken our place, we felt that our commanding officer had not disclosed fully his opinion of us as guards, but we had been provo guards about long enough and that a change was not onley good for us, but absolutely necessary for our development as good agressive soldiers. SCKY Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=south-central-kentucky Barren Co Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=kybarren GGP: http://ggpublishing.tripod.com/