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.