On the 25th of April, the regiment received orders to join its brigade, but did not march till noon of the following day. The departure of the regiment again brought forth many expressions of kind feeling from the people of Paris. “They could not have exhibited more feeling,” says an officer, “if the regiment had been composed of their own sons, husbands, and brothers; and the officers and men looked and acted as if they were leaving home.”
The regiment, commanded by Colonel Barnes,—Colonel Pierce remaining in command of Paris,—took cars on the Kentucky Central Railroad to Nicholasville, and proceeding two miles beyond the town, encamped for the night. On the morning of the 27th, it broke camp and marched till four o’clock in the afternoon, spending the night at Camp Dick Robinson. By successive marches, it proceeded to Lancaster (28th) and Stanford (29th). At the latter place, the Brigade was found, and after shaking hands all around, the men, weary from constant marching, lay down for the night. The following morning the Brigade broke camp, and after a very fatiguing march of eighteen miles, during which the men were forced to throw away their knapsacks, went into camp at Carpenters Creek. The spot occupied by the regiment at this place was very remarkable in its physical features; the ground where the tents were pitched was a deep depression in the earth, formed like the bottom of a bowl, covered with a rich carpet of grass, while surrounding this vale were steep hills several hundred feet high, the sides of which were covered with a heavy growth of trees. As a tarry of some five days was made here, the officers and men occupied the most of their time in endeavoring to ascertain where they were. One of the officers, in a letter written here, stated that they were “seven miles this side of Liberty,” which was probably incorrect, but as near the fact as any of them reached. The Brigade at this spot was about three miles south of Houston, nearly fifty miles from any railroad, and was under General Carter, the major portion of whose command, together with the General himself, were at this time absent “raiding.”
Reveille was beaten at one o’clock on the morning of the 5th of May, and the order given to strike tents and prepare for a long march; a little coffee was made and some food prepared, and after snatching a hasty breakfast, the regiment started off in the midst of a drizzling rain. That day’s march was indeed a hard one; the roads all along the route were muddy and uneven; at least twenty streams were forded, and numerous rugged hills (knobs) climbed during the day; the whole distance performed was not far from twenty miles; and although a march of this length in Virginia would have proved very monotonous, yet through this country, unscathed by war, covered with fine farms, and bearing every evidence of peace and plenty, the journey, though long and wearisome, was very interesting. The camp was formed at night at a spot called Fishing Creek. On the following day, during a severe rain-storm, the regiment marched to within four miles of Somerset, the capital of Pulaski County, remaining here till Friday the 8th.
The people living in the country through which the troops had marched were almost wholly farmers, and favorably disposed towards the Government, not having been much disturbed by the political excitement that raged in the large towns and cities of the State.
Some of the soldiers of the regiment, while resting at this camp, visited the farm-houses near by, and in nearly every instance were made welcome, and invited to partake of food. One of the soldiers who supped with an old farmer named Lester gives the following as the bill of fare: Warm wheat biscuit, “corn dodgers,” milk, coffee, molasses (a native production), sugar made from the maple, and plenty of “hog” (the natives never speak of pork; it is either “hog,” “shote,” or “pig meat”). The house in which Lester lived was built of logs, and had but two rooms. All the clothing worn by the family was manufactured by Mrs. Lester, from wool, flax, and cotton of their own raising; and after supper she commenced work on a piece of cloth in the loom, and these Massachusetts soldiers witnessed, for the first time in their lives, the good old custom which at one time prevailed in every home throughout New England. The family of Lester was an old-fashioned one in point of numbers; there were ten children. The average Kentucky family, however, is about twelve; and on the march from Carpenter’s Creek, one family was found which numbered nineteen children, twenty-one heads, including the prolific parents, who were represented as being very contented with their lot and proud of their family.
On Friday the 8th, the regiment broke camp and marched to the suburbs of Somerset, a town of two thousand inhabitants, containing some fine private residences and several churches. The town had been twice occupied by the enemy, and many of its citizens plundered of their property; and although few, if any, of the houses had been burned, yet an indescribable air of dreariness and loneliness seemed to pervade the whole place. The citizens appeared to be living under a constant apprehension of danger, kept themselves concealed in their houses much of the time, and so nervous were they, that one day when our batteries were engaged in target practice, the whole population was thrown into a state of great excitement, under the belief that a battle was in progress.
The camping-ground selected for the regiment was on the side of a hill, near the village, in the immediate neighborhood of which were other troops, two light batteries, one of mountain howitzers, the Twenty-seventh New Jersey Infantry, and a portion of Colonel Woodford’s Kentucky Cavalry. The latter was a very singular body of troops, and had a fame that extended throughout both Kentucky and Tennessee; it has been said that every name on its roll was represented by three men, two of whom were always at home, tending and watching their own and their companions’ crops. Their service in the regiment was by turns, relieving each other as do guards. This peculiar method of rendering military service was practicable, because the regiment rarely left the State, and was necessary on account of the constant liability of devastating raids of guerilla bands among the farming districts. Every man in this famous regiment was a rare character, and its commander pre-eminently so. Some of the orders which this officer was accustomed to give to his men could scarcely be found in any manual of tactics, the following being a specimen: “Prepare to git onto yeer creeturs! Git!” instead of, “Prepare to mount! Mount!”
There were still other troops in this vicinity beside those already mentioned, and it was generally supposed at the time that the Government could, with a few hours’ warning, concentrate at least 20,000 troops here.
A force of Confederates, variously estimated as to strength, was on the south bank of the Cumberland River, four miles from Somerset. The north bank of the stream was kept constantly and well picketed, and occasionally the river was crossed by our troops, and a raid made into the enemy’s lines. One of these expeditions, made by the Twenty-seventh New Jersey, of Christ’s Brigade, was attended by a painful accident; the stream was very rapid, and when the regiment was returning, one of the flat-boats capsized, and thirty-three men, one captain, and one lieutenant were drowned.
The mails had been extremely irregular, and the soldiers felt quite lonesome and unhappy in consequence; they were in truth more isolated from the rest of the world than ever before in their service. There being no railroad nearer than eighty miles, it was seldom that they saw a newspaper, or obtained any reliable intelligence of passing events at the various seats of war. All the rations for the entire army were drawn in wagons from Stanford, a town in Lincoln County, thirty-five miles away; and as no food could be bought in Somerset, the men were obliged to subsist wholly upon army rations; a real blessing to them, but it was nevertheless counted as a great hardship.