ON THIS DAY: Thursday, Sept. 26, 1861

Capt. Tom Taylor and four companies of the 47th Ohio finally reach Cross Lanes, in western Virginia, where they rejoin six other companies of the regiment. Taylor and the four companies have endured a march of nearly a hundred miles on a hilly, muddy trail that barely qualifies as a road. A month ago, Taylor had been wearing a fine dress uniform with a plumed hat. The elegance is gone. Now he wears “a blue blouse, two grey flannel shirts, coarse heavy blue pants,” and is barefoot, the better to deal with rain and mud.