No army ever marched forward with higher hopes of success and more eager for the fray than did the Army of Mississippi move into Kentucky. The forward movement from the swamps of Mississippi, to which General Beauregard had retreated from Corinth, seemed to inspire the troops with new life and to have imparted vigor and health to many a wasting form. Many a pale-faced and emaciated boy who had been reared in the lap of wealth in the blue-grass regions of Kentucky and Tennessee took heart when he turned his face homeward, and resolved that he would not die with the diseases that were so prevalent in the army at Tupelo at that time. It is too familiar to all to render it necessary to mention that the movement into Kentucky was accomplished by flanking General Buell, making a detour by way of Chattanooga and Knoxville, the right wing of the army, under Gen. E. K. Smith, moving by way of the latter place, and the remainder of the army, under the immediate command of General Bragg, by way of Sparta, Tenn., with a view of striking General Buell’s communications a short distance north of Nashville and of pushing as far as possible on that line toward Louisville. General Smith moved first. He made a most brilliant fight at Richmond, Ky., completely routing the Federals under General Nelson and capturing 5,000 prisoners. He moved on to Lexington and pushed on to Covington, opposite Cincinnati. The first that I saw of Colonel Wheeler on that campaign was near Franklin, Ky., when he was throwing every obstacle to be conceived in the way of the enemy’s march to check or hinder his progress. Every bridge on the road, however small or insignificant, was destroyed, and the railroad track was torn up all along the way.
The main army of General Bragg moved up the Louisville and Nashville Railroad as far as Elizabethtown, and there turned off to Bardstown, to the right. Here the infantry and artillery rested and recruited some two weeks, while the cavalry, under Colonels Wheeler and Wharton, pushed on as far as possible on all roads toward Louisville. I went within six miles of the city, and was there when, in view of an expected attack on the city, so great a panic prevailed as to cause a majority of the women and children to be sent across the Ohio River. When the main army left Bardstown, it moved in the direction of Perryville, and there it formed a junction with a portion of the forces of General Smith.