Each post became a busy camp of instruction, and the regiments repeated under more favorable circumstances the work of the original camp in Ohio.
The work of the military courts gave me one very unpleasant duty to perform, which, happily, was of rare occurrence and never again fell to my lot except on a single occasion in North Carolina near the close of the war.

A soldier of the First Kentucky Volunteers was condemned to death for desertion, mutiny, and a murderous assault upon another soldier.

The circumstances were a little peculiar, and gave rise to fears that his regiment might resist the execution.

I have already mentioned the affair of Captain Gibbs [Footnote: Appointed Captain and Assistant Commissary of Subsistence, U.S.
Vols., October 1.] who had shot down a mutinous man of the Second Kentucky at Gauley Bridge in the summer, and who had been acquitted by a court-martial.

The camp is very like a city in which popular impressions and rumors have quick circulation and large influence.
The two Kentucky regiments were so closely related as to be almost one, and were subject to the same influences.