Station five

 The Ninth Michigan Infantry was assembled at Fort Wayne, Detroit, during the month of September 1861, and its 913 Were mustered into the US service October 15th. October 17 at dress parade time three men who had refused to be sworn into service for dishonorably drummed out of camp. On October 23rd Reverend Doctor George Duffield, the Colonel's father in an eloquent and patriotic address presented the regiment with a beautiful silk banner. 

The 9th was the first Michigan regiment ordered to the western army and it left Fort Wayne on the ferry boat “Union” at 9:00 AM Friday October 25th, 1861, going 3 miles up the river to the landing near the Michigan central depot. After a considerable handshaking in the city left for the South on a Michigan central train drawn by two locomotives the head one nicely decorated and having a large band of reading death to traders went via Michigan City and Indianapolis stopped at Jackson for company C to bid goodbye to friends.  At Marshall, the “Fusiliers” afterwards called Michigan engineers, and mechanics greeted us 800 strong and at Niles the citizens brought in coffee crackers and biscuits. When it was daylight our journey through the two states was almost an ovation that people cheering us along the way we arrived at Jeffersonville at 7:00 PM Saturday and remained in the cars until Sunday morning when we went up the Ohio River about two miles. in pitched tents on a table land about 20 feet above the river. That day we received our first guns, Belgian muskets caliber 69 that would kill before and cripple behind. General Sherman was then in command of the Army of the Ohio, and he called on the officers and gave orders for the regiment to go to West Point KY.

We got breakfast and struck tents before daylight on Monday morning October 28th and at 8:00 started down the river on 2 boats for West Point, a small village situated at the junction of the celebrated Salt River and Ohio 20 miles below Louisville where we arrived at 4:00 PM and camped on a flat on the east side of Salt River in an Old Orchard. The ground was wet, we did not know then how to make bunks of straw or rails, and it was the most fatal camp we ever had before. We buried 61 men on the hill near there within a few weeks. Several other regiments soon joined us here Colonel hazard of the 37th Indiana commanding the post across Salt River on its West side is the northern end of Muldraugh’s Hill about 300 feet high here and quite steep on the Riverside on Sunday November 3rd Charles Bennett had charge of 50 men under Lieutenant Wright as engineering officer and we graded a winding path up the side of the hill wide enough for two to walk abreast.  Bennett remembers that very distinctively because it was the first time he ever worked on a Sunday, and it worried him very much. That was the beginning of the work of fortifying that hill on which the engineers estimated 70,000 days of work was expended the 9th during a large part of it making it quite a strong fortification Bennetts company G and company E were specially assigned to man the Fort with its two pieces of artillery (which were soon to be increased to 10) and we moved  inside of the Fort and began about December 1st erecting log cabins. The other companies moved onto the hill November 18th and in December began building log cabins outside the Fort the fortifications and cabins were completed January 1st, and we expected to occupy them all Winter, but all our pleasant dreams of comfort were shattered 4 days afterward. 

Thursday November 21 Colonel Duffield was made commander of West Point which was then an important base of supplies for our army concentrating at Elizabethtown and further South the supplies were brought here by steamers and then sent to the army South by wagons. The hill was fortified to protect the space of supplies and to fall back to in case of defeat.