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 fever and chronic diarrhea. At this evacuation of Corinth, the battery had barely enough men to drive the horses and Gen. Chalmers made a detail from the 10th Mississippi infantry to fill out the company.
Want of vegetable food, drinking water from seep wells and exposure to cold rains caused the sickness. It was general in the army and probably made necessary the retreat to Tupelo when, with better water, the company and army quickly secured usual health. The evening of May 3, 1862 and that night found company under arms in line of battle with Chalmer's Brigade, but no enemy appeared. Within two weeks ending May 8th, five of the men died: Fulgham, Hall, Hyche, Sims and Lingler. They gave their lives to the cause.
To die in hospital was harder, much harder, than to die in the excitement of battle, on the field. J. T. Searcy was unable to walk from a carbuncle on his knee.