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From the Sixty-Second Regiment.
KENTON, TENN., Oct. 27, 1862.
To the Editor of Jonesboro Gazette:
Thinking that you and your readers would like to know what disposition has been made of the Sixty-second Regiment — composed entirely of Egyptian "boys" — I send you this communication:
Leaving our old camp at Anna on the 27th of last April, a few hours found us in Cairo, where we tarried among the frogs, leeches and bull-heads until the 6th of May, when we bid good-by to the drowning city, and passed up the Ohio river to Paducah, Ky., a city beautifully located on an elevation of land, surrounded on three sides by a dense and lofty forest, where, notwithstanding our many duties, we had good health and a fine time generally.
On the 5th of the following month we received orders to remove to Columbus, Ky., to which place we repaired on the morning of the 7th, and found it a small, dilapidated Mississippi River town. There we remained long enough to examine the holes on the heights above the town, made by the negro to protect the cabbage-heads of the South from the frosts of winter.
It was quickly discovered that we could not be advantageously used at that place, so we were ordered to march for Kenton, Tennessee, and the 7th of June found us on the road to that place.
This being our first march it was highly enjoyed by the whole regiment. The trip was made in eight days.
Kenton is a low flat town, containing about two hundred inhabitants, has no fine buildings but is beautifully surrounded by extensive swamps. This portion of Tennessee is very thinly settled, is covered with dense forests and is generally very low and marshy, with here and there a hillock formerly used by Col. Crocket, for camping — this being his old hunting ground.
After an elapse of four months we are still found in this unhealthy locality, guarding some twenty miles of the Ohio and Mobile Railroad. With patient endurance have we watched over that part of the road under our care, which is acknowledged to be the most exposed portion of the entire route.
Our wishes are that our place may soon be supplied by some new regiment, and that we may then be led against the enemy, to fight, whip, end the war and return to old Egypt.
We left your county with eight hundred and fifty men, and we yet number over eight hundred, all in fine health. For the exceedingly healthy condition of our regiment many thanks are due our noble Surgeons, and to Dr. O. H. Rhodes, of your county, in particular.
Since the formation of the Sixty-second our loss has been: died, twenty; deserted and discharged, some thirty.
I hope our friends in that section now and then think of the "boys" in the old Sixty-second.
ONE OF THEM.