It was on a Sabbath morning, when our train finally stopped, and we were
ordered to disembark, and fall into line. The weather was intensely
warm. Now, I want to say right here, that if ever I have to order a
Regiment of men into the field, in the summer time, and that Regiment is
bound for a southern climate, I will not think it necessary to provide
them with overcoats, like we were, for we had them issued to us before
we left Danville, and thought we had to take them. So there we stood in
line, the hot sun pouring down his rays on our heads; our eyes sore from
cinders and the loss of sleep; with our accoutrements upon us, and
everybody as ill-natured, as might be expected, and no wonder. Oh! how
slow the moments went by, it seemed to us hours, but at last the command
rings out "Attention Battalion," "Take Arms," "Right Dress," "Right
Face," "Forward march," and away we went, the band playing and the flags
flying, across the Pontoon Bridge, over the Ohio, into the city of
Covington, and the "neutral" state of Kentucky. Marching men, or
regulating the gait of a horse to the step of new recruits, was
something our worthy Colonel was sadly ignorant of, and it was not to be
wondered at, for it was a new business to him. His horse walked too fast
for us, and the consequence was that when he arrived at our camp he had
but a "corporal's guard" following him. The remainder of the Regiment
was scattered like sheep along the way we had come.
The writer and his partner stopped at what had once been a "Beer
Garden," and on the tables which had once resounded to the clink of
glasses, and which were placed around the enclosure in the shade of the
trees, we deposited our weary bodies, and wished we were—at home.
Without intending to throw any blame whatever, on the character or
motives of our worthy Colonel, covering him with the excuse that he was
totally ignorant of the art of "marching men," we must give it as our
candid opinion that the march from Cincinnati to our camp on the hills
back of Covington, did an injury to the rank and file of the Regiment,
from which it never recovered, and which was the remote cause of death
to some, and to others of lasting injury. Our camp was situated, truly,
at a lofty elevation. We were placed in the Corn Stalk shelters which
the "Squirrel Hunters" had occupied when Bragg had threatened Cincinnati
with his forces, and who, at the call of the Governor of Ohio, had
flocked to the standard of the Union, with their squirrel rifles, and
their shot guns, to drive back the rebel hordes, and to maintain the old
Flag, with their life blood if need be. They came from the prairie and
the wood-land, in such numbers that the Governor was compelled to issue
another proclamation, that no more were needed. Into the shelters which
they had made from corn stalks, gathered from the fields contiguous, and
which were models of skill and ingenuity, showing that the American, as
a man, is equal to almost any emergency, our Regiment was marched, and
quarters allotted to each company. Oh! those terrible hills, the like we
had never seen before. We were prairie men; our homes had been in a
level country, but here it was just the reverse, and it seemed to us as
if we had ascended to the very heights. The Ohio rolled beneath us, and
from its bosom we had to procure the water that was necessary for our
use. How many lies were told to get out of the job of carrying water up
to camp, or how many oaths were uttered by those who undertook the job,
driven to it by necessity, the writer cannot pretend to state, but it
was a hard journey, and the consequence was that water became to us, for
once, _valuable_, and many was the raid that was made, under cover of
the night, to some fellow's mess kettle, that had been filled to cook
his breakfast with in the morning. But we enjoyed it all, after we had
gotten over our march to get there, and soon the camp was alive with fun
and frolic. We had nothing much to do but cook our food, drill, and
police the camp grounds, and occasionally go on picket; and so we passed
the days away, wondering where we would go to next, writing letters home
and doing all in our power to make the time pass pleasantly.
Here it was an incident happened that was ludicrous in the extreme. It
was the custom of the picket guard, when returning to camp every
morning, to discharge their guns by volley, under command of a
commissioned officer, at or into the foot of the hill on which our camp
was situated. On this morning, to which we have reference, the pickets
had been relieved and returned to camp, and as was their custom, had
assembled at the foot of the hill to discharge their pieces. At the
command of their officer there was a volley, and from some cause or
other the bullets came whizzing over our heads, filling the air with
that buzzing sound, which is so familiar to the old soldier, but which
sounds like a death knell to the raw recruit. What a scattering to and
fro there was, when those leaden missiles came whizzing through the air,
what a falling to the ground, and hugging of mother earth was there
witnessed. We thought the "Johnnies" had come sure enough; our minds
were instantly filled with the accounts we had read of "surprises,"
"ambuscades," and the idea that the enemy were right on hand, seemed to
have filled the minds of many. That scene will never be forgotten by
those who are how living, and who witnessed it. It was a terrible
"give-away" on the courage and soldierly qualities of at least one
company in the One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Infantry. But we were indeed
"infants" in the art of war. And to have seen what followed when it was
definitely ascertained as to where the bullets came from, was ludicrous
in the extreme. To see a big, brawny fellow who had fallen to the
ground, to all appearances as dead as a log, raise up his head and
enquire of his nearest neighbor, why _he_ was laying _there_! What in
thunder was the reason that, if he felt like laying down, every body
else must lay down, too!! Get up and leave me alone now, or I'll hurt
somebody!! And to see how quietly these prostrate forms would assume
life and locomotion, and glide away into their corn stalk huts; and then
at night, after the affair had cooled down somewhat, to listen, as we
sat around our camp fires, to each one as he described what his
sensations were at the time, seems to us, at this late day, to be just
as comical as it was then. But oh! how they redeemed themselves, in
after days, from any stigma of cowardice this may have cast upon them;
how they faced the enemy and met death as only brave men can, the hearts
of those who survived the fray in the years that came after, can bear
witness. All honor to them, our neighbor boys, our true and tried
friends.