Camp Butler, Sagamon
co Ills. Morning quite cool. Williams returned last night with 3 recruits. Co.
now consists of 82 men rank and file. Capt. Killpatrick's Comp. arrived from
Milton Pike County Ills. last evening. Capt Hunts Comp. from Barry arrived
today. A Comp. from Bellville St. Clair County also arrived to day, accompanied
by a brass band Brown County Cavalry Comp. Came this morning.
SOURCE: Transactions
of the Illinois State Historical Society
for the Year 1909, p. 223
Camp at Jacksonville
Morgan co. Ills. Roll call at 5 Breakfast at 5½ O'clock. Immediately after
breakfast the 13 men who joined last evening were examined and sworn into the
service.
Left Camp Butler
with 6 other Companies at ½ past 10 O'clock marched to Jim Town left on the
train at ½ past 11, arrived at Jacksonville at 3 P. M. marched from the depot to
our present encampment nearly 1½ miles very hot and dusty. Had rations enough
left of the amt. drawn of the commissary at Camp Butler for our supper Would
not issue rations to us this evening, for tomorrow through some mistake or
other Have a nice pleasant place for our Camp high dry and healthy.
SOURCE: Transactions of the Illinois State
Historical Society for the Year 1909, p. 223
Camp Butler Sagamon County Ills. Capt. Parkes Comp arrived at this place. Rec'd Tents Camp Equippage &c. Tents erected today.
SOURCE: Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1909, p. 223
Negroes by the hundreds are flocking to our camp; all sizes and ages, ranging from one year to one hundred years old. Poor deluded beings, how extravagant have been their conceptions relative to the Yankees. An order from headquarters at Baily Springs this evening informs us that Colonel Rowett has fought himself away from Camp Butler and returned to the command of the regiment. Remaining in camp at Jackson's until the fifteenth, we leave and report to regimental headquarters. Immediately Captain Ring receives orders to proceed with the detachment to Center Star, where we arrive in the evening and go into camp, after which patrols are sent out to Bainbridge and Lamb's Ferry. This detachment will long remember their camp and stay at the Jackson plantation; how Captain R, Sergeants N. and A. made journeys across the Blue Water, and how the Captain when coming in contact with one of the South's fair literary stars, discoursed so freely upon the American and English poets—especially upon the merits of the Bard of Avon.
SOURCE: Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, p. 231-2
After mingling for a
while so pleasantly with the good people of Illinois, enjoying their
hospitality and receiving from them many words of cheer, we rendezvous at
Camp Butler, February 18th. While here we add to our rolls a large number of
recruits. Noble men they are who have been waiting patiently to arrive at the
necessary age for a soldier. That period having arrived, they now seem to feel
proud in their uniforms of blue. Colonel Rowett having been by special order,
(contrary to his wishes,) assigned to the command of Camp Butler, on the
twenty-second of February the regiment, under the command of Major Estabrook, takes
the cars for Dixie. Arriving at Louisville, Kentucky, we receive transportation
for Nashville. On arriving there, we are furnished lodgings in the Zollicoffer
House. The regiment will long remember the accommodations received there at the
hands of the government contractors. How the bristling bayonets clashed
together at the entrance, and how they practiced their expert chicanery to work
their egress therefrom.
Remaining here until
transportation is furnished, on the twenty-eighth we proceed on our way to
Pulaski, Tennessee. The trains running all the way through, we arrive in our
old camp at five P. M.; all seem glad to get back; the non-veterans are glad to
see us, and hear from their friends at home; and even the mules send forth
their welcome.
