ugh the
campaign of the Army of Virginia, under Gen. John Pope, losing heavily
at the battle of the second Manassas, then again under General
McClellan, in his successful campaign of South Mountain and Antietam.
Meantime, General McDowell had been succeeded by General Hooker in the
command of the First Army Corps. It was in the Fredericksburg campaign
under Burnside, and was by his order transferred from the First to the
Ninth Army Corps. After a not unpleasant march, both by rail and
steamboat, the battery reached Lexington, Ky., on March 30th, 1863, and
went into camp on the Fair grounds. Here it remained but a week, and
then the line of march was taken up for camp Dick Robinson. On the 26th,
the battery began its march from camp Dick Robinson to Somerset, near
the Cumberland river, completing it on the 7th of May, 1863, and there
it remained until the 7th of June. It was now expected that within a few
days the march for East Tennessee would commence. Although we, members
of the battery, well knew that the campaign would be arduous and full of
dangers, still we were all anxious to advance. In consequence of orders
to General Burnside to send a part of his command to Vicksburg to assist
General Grant, and in consequence of the raid of Gen. John Morgan, it
was not until the 21st of August, 1863, that the expedition started. The
Twenty-third Army Corps was the only corps that commenced at that date
the march over the Cumberland river and mountains. General Hartzuff
commanded the corps, consisting of three divisions commanded by Generals
White, Hascall and Carter, respectively. We were attached to Gen.
Hascall's division, and marched with our division by way of Stanford,
Crab Orchard and Cub Creek to the Cumberland river. The Ninth Corps was
reported to be at Cincinnati and to follow close upon the tracks of the
Twenty-third Corps. The strength of the Twenty-third Corps was, perhaps,
15,000 or 20,000 men of all arms.

The march over the Cumberland mountains was full of adventures and
labors. It would require a much longer paper than this to describe the
many incidents that befell us on that famous march. We had no snow nor
ice to encounter, but otherwise I doubt whether or not Napoleon's
crossing of the Alps was more fraught with dangers and hardships than
was this crossing of the Cumberland mountains by the Army of the Ohio.
On the 4th of September, 1863, we arrived upon the bluffs of the
Tennessee river, opposite Loudon