With sixteen companies equipped, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. Shepherd reported to Colonel Carrington for duty in the field. Because of my success in securing enlistments, I was kept on recruiting service, but on February 23, 1862, I was ordered to proceed to Louisville, Kentucky, with thirty men, to join the regiment then en route from West Virginia to the Army of the Cumberland at Nashville.
I was too late to join Shepherd's sixteen companies, and was assigned to a river vessel filled with various troops, largely volunteers, including Captain Mack of the regular infantry, temporarily commanding a regular battery. A drunken man reported to me he had been left by Shepherd's command, and asked to join mine. He reported to my sergeant, D'Isay, and asked for food, but boasted that all he wanted was something to eat and that he was going to leave. When he started down the gang plank, one of the men and I caught him, had a fight in which I hurt my hand so I had to wear it in a sling, tore practically all the clothing off the deserter, but we brought him aboard. Soon afterward, the first sergeant of Mack's artillery told me that Captain Mack wished to see me. I reported to Captain Mack, who asked me if I knew who was in command of the vessel. I said I did not, and he said, "No more do I, but, as I am a captain in the regular army and you are a lieutenant, suppose we consider that I am in command. I saw your encounter with that drunken soldier and, as we are probably going to have a great deal of disorder in this mixed command on this trip to Nashville, I think you are a proper person to act as officer of the day for today. There is no time for a regular guard mount, but you assume the duties and, as you are having some considerable trouble with that drunken man, my sergeant will report to you and take care of the disorderly." The sergeant tied his hands, and trussed his knees with a stick, gagged him with a bayonet and sat him in a state room, satisfied he would stop swearing and abusing the officers! The man soon begged for relief, but was tried by court martial and sentenced to be shot for striking an officer, which sentence was later commuted by General Thomas.
Subsequently I carried Captain Mack off the battle-field of Stone River, desperately wounded. I saw him next at the War Department in Washington in 1870, assistant to the Secretary of War, and he arranged my transfer from infantry to cavalry.
I reported to Colonel Fry, adjutant to Colonel Buell, at Louisville, and was directed to take my thirty men to Major Stokes, commanding the 3d battalion of three companies, 18th Infantry, near Nashville. Major Stokes made me adjutant. He was a military novice, too old to learn, and soon failed of confirmation by the Senate.
The three companies were temporarily consolidated with the other two battalions and Colonel Shepherd made me adjutant of the regiment in the field.
When "Parson" William G. Bronlow, the courageous and persistent leader of the Union men of East Tennessee, arrived at the St. Cloud Hotel, under flag of truce from Knoxville, escorted by an officer of the Confederate army, many of our officers wished to pay their respects. Twenty officers requested me, as adjutant, to introduce them. Admitted to his hotel, I greeted him and introduced my companions. He introduced the young Confederate officer with the remark, "This young man is my nephew, a man with good intentions, but sadly misguided."
Each spoke a few words with the Parson, a nervous, sympathetic and passionate man. Just before we left he exclaimed: "Gentlemen, you are right. Fight 'em, fight 'em, fight 'em till hell freezes over, and then fight 'em on the ice!" A strange speech for a parson, perhaps, but illustrating the intense bitterness the war instilled in all.
Buell's command was ordered to proceed by forced marches to Shiloh to reinforce Grant, about to give battle to the Confederate General Johnson, and on April 6, 1862, my regiment, the 18th U. S. Infantry (two battalions, nineteen companies), as a part of the Third Brigade, First Division, Army of the Ohio, marched all day in the rain toward the sound of the cannon at the battle then raging at Shiloh Church.
We arrived at Savannah late at night, eighteen miles above the battle-ground. The rain made the roads on the left bank of the river almost impassable, and it was decided to send us on by steamer. It was, however, nine or ten o'clock in the morning before a boat could be furnished, so we did not arrive at Pittsburg Landing until about two p.m. of that day, when the battle was almost over.