Chapter VI
PLAYING SOLDIER IN KENTUCKY
Our breakfast at Baltimore. The trip west. The Reception at Mt. Sterling. Moved into the town.
The early spring of 1863, found us at Newport News awaiting orders. Finally, on March 18th, orders came and on the 19th, the 1st Division went on board transports.
March 26. We went on board the steamer “Kennebeck” during the forenoon, and in the afternoon started for Baltimore. In the early morning of the 27th we steamed into the harbor of that city. The 2d Maryland was in the 1st Division and it was a Baltimore regiment. It had passed through the city just ahead of us and had arranged with its friends there, to be on the lookout for the 21st when we came along and see that we had a good breakfast. Well, there was nothing for sale at any of the restaurants near the wharf to members of the 21st, but we were all treated to as good a breakfast as any fellow could wish for. The editor of the Baltimore American, whom we had become acquainted with when doing picket duty on the railroad near Annapolis Junction, in the autumn of 1861, was there to welcome us. After breakfast we fell in line, marched up to the office of the Baltimore American and the band played all the national airs. Every one made a speech. We gave three cheers and a tiger a number of times and then we marched back to the wharf again. This reception was arranged for by the 2d Maryland, in memory of the Pollocksville breakfast we gave them May 17th, 1862, down in North Carolina. We did not leave Baltimore until the next morning (the 28th), when just at dawn we steamed away and on through Harrisburg, Pa., and Altoona, where we were given a fine supper at midnight.
At Pittsburgh, on the 29th, we were marched to a public hall and given a fine reception; left in the morning for Cincinnati. On the way, at Coshocton, Ohio, we were received with great cordiality by the people, were given a fine breakfast and the tables were waited on by as handsome a lot of young ladies as can be seen anywhere. We reached Columbus, Ohio, early in the afternoon of the 30th. We were cordially received there and furnished coffee and sandwiches. After this was all over and the people who had furnished the lunch had gone home, the train remaining in the railroad station, some of the boys wandered up into the town to see the capitol buildings and anything else of interest. A little way up a guard was encountered, refusing the boys admission to the town. After some bantering the guard opened fire on the boys, killing two and wounding a number of others. This so enraged the boys that there was a general rush for their guns, and had not the officers been on hand at the time there would have been a lot of blood spilled. The boys were got on to the train and we left the town as soon as possible.
The guard that opened fire on our boys was a detail from a new regiment of Ohio soldiers. How a lot of new soldiers doing ordinary guard duty in a city like that were given loaded muskets was impossible to understand. We reached Cincinnati at two o’clock the next morning, March 31st. We marched to the Market House where we received a good breakfast and cordial greeting from the people. While there, we learned that we were assigned to the “Army of the Ohio” and that General Burnside had been put in command of the “Department of the Ohio.” In the middle of the day we crossed the river and took train for Paris, Ky., arriving there in the early morning of April 1st. We went into camp and remained there three days.
April 3d. We marched to Mt. Sterling, a distance of twenty-two miles. Here, we were to do frontier duty, assisting in protecting the people of Kentucky from raids by Confederate cavalry and guerrillas which had become very common. The march to Mt. Sterling was through the blue grass region and over a fine turnpike—the first fine road we had seen since leaving New England. Mt. Sterling is the county town of Montgomery County and has about 3000 inhabitants. But as we marched through the town we saw not one of the 3000. The streets were deserted, the blinds on the windows were closed and the doors barred. We marched on through the village out on one of the main roads and went into camp. A strong guard was put around the camp and no one was allowed to go in town.