ade their usual inroads on
the health of the command, and many of them had to spend a part of the
time in the hospital in Mobile, George W. Smith and James L. Miller
among them.

Major Hallonquist was in command of the Artillery at Ft. Gaines but on
April 4th was ordered to join Gen. Bragg at Corinth, Tenn., and Col.
Melanclhan Smith took command of the Fort. Officers and men were
longing to meet the enemy in battle.

At Ft. Gaines, a few Yankee vessels blockading could be seen in the
distance, but the monotony was wearing, and each commanding officer was
pulling all possible ropes to secure orders to proceed to the front, in
this case to Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston's army near Corinth. Capt.
Lumsden got promises but by perhaps some political pull Gage's Mobile
battery secured the deserved privilege to report at Corinth and in the
battle of Shiloh got badly cut up and after the battle was ordered back
to Mobile to recuperate and Lumsden's was ordered to Corinth and given
the same guns and equipment.

On Sundays near Mobile Dr. Hill, a private, often officiated as a
preacher so that during this first year, Sundays could be distinguished
from the other days of the week. He was from near Columbus,
Mississippi, and a practicing physician as well. Tuesday, April 15,
1862, three days after the battle of Shiloh, found the command at
Corinth, having left Mobile on Monday and it took possession of Gage's
guns, etc., on April 16th, got tents 4:00 p.m. April 17th, so for the
first time for two nights, they slept on the ground in the open air, a
new thing then, the general rule thereafter.

Several Tuscaloosa Doctors were near Corinth, assisting in caring for
the wounded, amongst them Drs. Leland and Cochrane. Even to see so many
gathered as in this first army was a new sight and experience to these
raw troops.

On April 23rd the battery was attached to Chalmers Brigade, and marched
twelve miles over awful roads of sticky mud and water to Monterey,
where everything was next morning put in line of battle but the rifle
and cannon firing was a mere reconnaissance of the enemy and all hands
bivouaced in place on the wet ground.

Here much sickness prevailed and the rains were continuous. The
hospital tent was soon filled and on one day Orderly Sergeant Little,
out of a roll of 170 men took to a church in Corinth used as a hospital
in charge of Dr. N. P. Marlowe, sixty men sick. They had measles,
pneumonia, erysipelas, typhoid f