Kentucky and East Tennessee Loyalists, tall, gaunt, long-haired and quaint-spoken, but burning with enthusiasm for the Government of their fathers, flocked to the camp, doffed their butternut garb, assumed the glue, and enrolled themselves to defend the Union.
At length it became evident that the Rebel "Army of Liberation" was really about crossing the Cumberland Mountains to drive out the "Yankees" and recover possession of Kentucky for the Southern Confederacy.
Outposts were thrown out in all directions to gain the earlies possible intelligence of the progress of the movement, and to make such resistance to it as might be possible.

One of these outposts was stationed at Wildcat Gap, an inexpressibly wild and desolate region, sixty miles from Camp Dick Robinson, where the road entering Kentucky from Tennessee at Cumberland Gap crosses the Wildcat range of mountains.
One day the startling news reached camp that an overwhelming Rebel force under Gen.

Zollicoffer was on the eve of attacking the slender garrison of Wildcat Gap.

The "assembly" was sounded, and the regiment, hastily provided with rations and ammunition, was hurried forward to aid in the defense of the threatened outpost.
Nature, as if in sympathy with the gathering storm of war, ceased her smiling.

The blue, bending skies were transformed into a scowling, leaden-visaged canopy, from which fell a chill incessant rain.
When the order to prepare for the march came, Glen, following the example of his comrades, packed three days' cooked rations in his haversack, made his blankets into a roll, tieing their ends together, threw them scarf-fashion over his shoulder, and took his accustomed place as file-closer in the rear of his company.